Chaos Theory
by Exodia-Girl
Summary: Sandy's mundane existence is turned up side down by one freak lightning storm that opens a rip in the fabric of space-time, sending her into a darker time and a fateful meeting with an assassin and danger untold. Serial Project, better note inside
1. The Gates of Time

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** I will try to keep this author note brief in favor of a longer one at the end. First and foremost I would like to say that I am perfectly aware that this is essentially a 'common' setting within the AC fandom. I am writing this for my own fun, and the enjoyment of myself and my best friends, those of us who are fond of the game and all it's characters. Chaos Theory was inspired by the _Outlander_ book series by Diana Gabaldon in which a main heroine travels back in time to the Scottish Highlands in the years of clan warfare and fighting against the English. Similarly, the heroine in Chaos Theory travels back in time, instead of getting sucked into the game. The world of Assassin's Creed is for all intents and purposes joined with more actual history from the time and peppered with game plot parallels. So without further adieu, enjoy!

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Chapter I**_**:** _The Gates of Time_

It was raining in Vancouver again, and not in the spring pitter-patter that would end in half an hour and leave the world feeling fresh. This rain was brisk, sharp, and cold. The wind accompanying it whistled between the buildings, blowing the rain at odd angles, and whipping loose trash off the street, swirling it high into the air.

She sat in the cyber café, sipping half-flat cola through a straw from the can and watching the rain over the monitor as she surfed the net for whatever stroked her fancy. Spending three bucks an hour on this was worth more than waiting out there in the rain for her posse to show up. YouTube was dull; there was hardly anything worth watching, and few useful tutorials that would pertain to her hobby. She didn't look too hard either; always wary of the eyes of other customers, or the proprietor himself. The last thing she needed was for someone to notice she was looking at videos that taught you how to improvise incendiary devices.

Outside lighting flashed, registering in the corner of her eye, causing her to look up. Thunder rumbled, rolling like a distant deep drumbeat. She frowned and glanced at the television set mounted over the counter behind which the proprietor sat reading a novel, keeping half an eye open on the events inside and the clock. The news channel's screen was split three-ways showing the anchor, weather, and traffic cameras. Underneath the current temperature flashed a red band, bearing the label 'thunderstorm warning'. She frowned, warning meant that the storm was predicted to be particularly vicious, but she had thirty dollars, nowhere else to be, and the café was open twenty-four seven, she was staying put. She turned back to the screen and decided to check her email, switching to hotmail as she dragged on the straw of her cola.

She has just logged on and switched over to the inbox view when the lightning flashed again, startling her momentarily. The thunder boomed barely three seconds later, the blast lacked the tell tale roll of distance, it sounded like a whip crack followed by an explosion.

"That's some storm out there," the voice of one of the other customers announced.

"Hey Jonesy, how are the surge protectors on this place?" another asked.

"Pretty good, if the power doesn't go down we're fine." The proprietor replied.

She sighed and went back to her email, ten new, and nine of them were junk. Most junks were for Viagra and purported 'male enhancement' pills. She didn't know what kind of woman would go for a man who felt insecure enough to need the latter. She deleted the junk efficiently and brutally and then clicked on the one good message. It was from her friend, saying that due to the storm their meeting was canceled. She glanced at the time stamp and realized that the email had arrived two hours previous, meaning she had wasted six dollars and two hours for nothing. Someone was going to have to explain this, why the email? Couldn't someone call? Her cell phone was right there!

Lightning flashed again, filling the room with an eerie blue glow, and suddenly thunder exploded overhead. The storefront windows rattled in their frames with the shockwave. In the stunned silence that followed she became acutely aware of the rising hum from all the machines in the room as their cooling fans jumped to high gear instantaneously. She felt her cell phone vibrate in the pocket of her jacket and suddenly the lightning flashed again, there was a crack and a series of pops as the florescent lights on the ceiling overloaded and burned out, revealing the full luminescence of the lighting. The shocked cries of the patrons were drowned out as before the first flash of lightning died, a second flashed, and the thunder boomed like an explosion right overhead. A third flash of lighting followed and suddenly she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up on end, as if by static electricity. Thunder exploded overhead again and the computer in front of her suddenly shut off. All around her the computers began to shut down, thunder boomed for the third time just as she pushed away from the table. As her fingers came in contact with the metal table, a shock traveled through her arms and into her body, painful for all of a second before everything around her went dark as if blinked out of existence.

* * *

She found herself drifting into consciousness slowly, as if a veil was being pulled off her mind, with her body returning to her control one sense at a time. First came the awareness of was her position; she was lying on something hard and flat. Her limbs felt like rocks that refused to budge, and her eyelids felt positively leaden. Her ears rung with a chorus of chimes, her whole body felt hot, and the weight of her bag against her hip was almost crushing. There was a luminescence in front of her eyelids, as if she was facing the sun, but that couldn't possibly be true, it was night in Vancouver right now, wasn't it, or was she out cold that long?

Then she became aware of was the smell, the poignant mix of rotting food blended with the unmistakable tang of raw sewage. Wherever she was, it was dry as a bone and impossibly hot. Her hearing came back slowly as the ringing eased and she became aware of distant voices, footsteps, amorphous shouts that made little sense to her yet fogged mind. Her suddenly hyperactive hearing picked up a faint scrapping and scratching somewhere behind her. She raised one hand and placed it over her eyes, rubbing them as she forced her body to sit up. A split second later she opened her eyes and was shocked to discover her surroundings.

She was sitting on the dirty ground in an alley between two sand-colored buildings that only had two floors. The buildings were square like boxes, flat-roofed, and the sun was beaming powerfully into the alley between them from high overhead. She scrambled to her feet and dusted herself off; then quickly patting the pockets of her jeans she decided that nothing was missing. Her messenger bag was still there, still closed, and just as heavy as she remembered it to be.

Reaching into the pocket of her jacket she pulled out her cell phone and began to dial before she saw the 'no signal' status flashing on the screen. She stared at the display for a long moment, uttering a quiet "What the hell?" The time on the screen showed it was supposed to be three am, but here –wherever here was- it was barely noon. Slipping the device back into her pocket she moved to the mouth of the alley. Something was terribly amiss.

She paused when she saw the people on the street beyond the alley. They were unfamiliar, wearing middle-eastern clothing she recognized from books, television, and movies. The shouts she had heard were peddlers calling people to inspect their wares. Few people noticed her presence, mostly men walking alone. Some watched her for a few seconds as they passed; others instantly averted their gazes. Emerging from the alley she turned to go with the general flow of the people, trying to figure out where she was. It was odd that her cell phone was saying no signal, there didn't seem to be anything in the area to impede the connection. The buildings around her were low squares, mostly two and three stories tall.

The street was narrow, uneven, and steadily climbing. Ahead of her, it widened and emerged unto a plaza with a fountain in the center, sparsely decorated with parched, half-dead looking shrubbery and stone benches all around. Everything was stone, no sign of cars, no light posts, no phone posts, nothing, just a lot of very odd people. She stopped in the middle of the plaza and surveyed her surroundings. There were three other streets joining the plaza, one of them was rising and meandering slowly. She could see it was heading unto a large hill.

She could see the dome of a church among the sea of flat-roofed plain crème buildings. The sight of the odd church did not bother her; she continued to scan the sights around her. Her eyes drifted along the rising street, climbing with it as she scanned the hill. The road bended to the right eventually, vanishing from view, but beyond it was a sight that stopped her wandering eyes dead. High on the hill was a square blue-tiled mosque with a large glittering gold dome. She had only seen it in textbooks and pictures, but there could never be a mistake. "Jerusalem?" she muttered.

The confusion settled now, how could she be in Jerusalem? She was supposed to be in Vancouver, half across the world. She glanced about her and noticed the absence of cars, wasn't modern old Jerusalem busy with cars? Where were the tourists with their fanny-packs and cameras around their necks, or the Jewish _Hasids_ in their black clothing and odd hats? What the hell was going on? The people around her were oddly dressed, as if she had stumbled into the middle of a reenacting of something from a thousand years before.

"Stop! Thief!" someone shouted.

She whirled around in time to see a young man run at her, dodging and shoving people out of his way. Hot on his heels were five guards who looked positively livid in their padded armor. As bizarre as the scene was, instinctively she stepped back to let him pass. Suddenly her foot caught unto something and she tripped, instinctively reaching out, catching a passing woman by the sleeve. The jolt sent the amphora she held crashing unto the ground where it shattered and spilled water unto the stone street in great splash.

The uproar was instantaneous, three other people got drenched, and as the thief ran past her smiling like a fox, then he had the audacity to nod his head in thanks. She noticed the guards had not missed the commotion, or the thief's gesture; the look in their eyes did not bode well. Her instinct told her to run, and so she did, turning on her heels she sprinted after the thief, using the slipstream he created through the crowd. He took the street heading towards the Dome of the Rock, and she followed.

"Catch them both!" one of the guards shouted.

She veered around the thickening crowd, not daring to plow through them. Entering another small plaza she noticed the thief take the road heading to the left. Knowing following him further was akin to admitting being in cahoots with him she chose to continue uphill, taking the meandering road straight up as fast as she could. The ground rose sharply here and the gradation served to slow her down and rob her of breath far faster than normal. The overbearing heat added to her predicament and soon she was gasping for breath as she pushed through the crowd.

She saw an alley and ducked into it, hoping to lose any tail by hiding just out of sight, though not in the shadows as there were none. Normally her black leather jacket and dark jeans were good for hiding, even if her short dirty blond hair stood out among the dark people around her. From her hiding spot she peeked into the street, and watched for pursuers.

Three of the guards had seemingly followed the thief; the other two had followed her. They had stopped two buildings down, seemingly unsure of where she was and she breathed a sight of relief. Then one of the street vendors approached the guards, and suddenly he pointed at her hiding spot. She cursed, emerged from the alley and bolted further up the street. The momentarily respite allowed her to get some of her breath back. She figured ultimately she had the advantage; the guards would have to tire out sooner as they had armor on.

"Stop!" the guards shouted.

People here were fewer, and they parted to allow her to pass unimpeded. She saw another small plaza where the street branched out into three like a spider web. She turned right and kept running, the street here was going slightly downhill, helping her along. It was also thick with people again and she was forced to weave and dodge around them as she ran.

"Damnit. Damnit. Damnit!" she cursed as she ran.

"Stop right now, woman!" The guards shouted.

She ignored them and kept running, but she knew they were gaining; the shout was closer than the last. Another small square, she turned on her toes, and gunned it left, past the benches and a group of men dressed in white that stood out among the browns and greens everyone else seemed to be wearing.

"Stop!" the guards shouted.

"Like hell!" she growled and pushed her body into a last ditch final sprint.

The street here narrowed and she dodged another woman with an amphora as she ducked into a narrow alley. She could hear the guard's footsteps, so she ran to the other end of the alley, only to discover that this alley was a dead end, she turned around and froze.

"Nowhere to run now," the voices of the guard called from the mouth of the alley.

They sounded less winded than she would've liked as she gulped oxygen in great heaves, forcing it to circulate through her body and into her cramped muscles. She glanced around her, and noticed that indeed she was trapped in this narrow alley.

The guards advanced, shoulder to shoulder with barely any room to move.

"You're that thief's accomplice, we would've been merciful had you not run-"

"Choke on your mercy. I'm no one's accomplice!" she hissed.

"Watch your mouth woman!"

Both guards drew their swords and suddenly she realized just in how much trouble she was. Her hands drifted behind her back under her jacket where she felt the familiar leather pouch were she kept her self-defense weapons.

"I'm warning you two, I'm a black belt."

The guards did not look impressed as they looked at each other. One advanced before the other, a grin quickly spreading on his face.

She palmed the familiar weight of her weapons and brought her hands foreword. The six inch asymmetrical Kris blades snapped out one after the other, each with a loud _kra-ching_. She settled the familiar blades into a reverse grip and it made the guards falter for all of a split second before one lunged, swinging at her.

She dodged around him and ducked low, instantly jamming her left switchblade into the back of his thigh. "Stay down!" she commanded, straightening. The injured guard kneeled, unable to do anything other than obey and at that moment the other lunged.

She didn't let him come close, lunging at him as not to put herself between the both of them, where the other could swing at her from behind. The second guard's swing was dodged with no more difficulty than the first. The narrow alley was helping her, they could not sweep their swords across to get at her, and she prided herself on her quick reflexes and footwork. The streets of Vancouver's 'other side of the tracks' taught her to dodge sharp things much faster than a winded guard's sword, especially given the limited options they had when swinging.

She spun on her toes, turning to face her assailant just as the other guard did, her back was now to the mouth of the alley, but she was some distance from the actual mouth. The thought came of booking it, but odds were the remaining guard would follow her; he certainly did not seem interested in helping his comrade who was bleeding behind him. The guard stared her down for a long moment, probably contemplating his next attack.

She grinned, "Told you I'm a black belt. Come if you dare! Or you could leave me alone and I'll leave, no worse harm done." she raised her knives and slid one leg back to ready another charge.

Suddenly the guard's expression shifted to surprise, but his eyes were locked over her shoulder. Sandy was startled when something whistled just past her ear, and a split of a second later the healthy guard fell to his knees, a knife protruding from his neck. He collapsed unto the knife and did not get up, dead before he hit the ground. Her eyes widened as facts registered, someone behind her had just lopped a deadly accurate knife at her assailant, and what more that someone was utterly silent, otherwise she should've heard footsteps.

The injured guard scrambled to his feet and she instinctively raised her knives. He was wobbling, clearly unstable on his feet, but whoever was behind her had scared him into action. The blood was now running down his leg and collecting on the ground, just from that she knew she had nicked something semi-important in there. Odds are he probably knew was not long for this world.

"More filth," the injured guard sneered. "First this whore-"

That was all he got out before a white blur raced past her, seemingly flying into the guard, she heard the sound of metal scraping against metal followed by a groan. The white figure stepped back and guard hit the floor with a sickening thud, staring lifelessly into the distance.

She took a step back as the visage of the white-robed figure fully registered. It was a man; probably six foot tall at least, with a well built, clad almost entirely in white from head toe, complete with a full cowl over his head. She took another step back as he turned. Though she couldn't seen his face fully due to the hood-cast shadow that concealed everything but the merest glimpse of his chin and mouth, she could still feel her skin begin to crawl under the intensity of his shadowed stare.

"Thank you?" she said, unsure whether this was just the apex predator disposing of competition. The two men were dead, she was certain. The blood now pooling on the floor from the wound in the first guard's chest was real. She could almost smell the metal scent of it on the hot still air.

The killer moved, seemingly ignoring her, and used his foot to turn the guard unto his back as he leaned down to retrieve his knife from the man's chest. He flicked the blood off and stuck it into one of the four sheathes fastened to the broad leather belt around his waist on top of a red sash. "You should leave now," he said in a chilled tenor.

She took a third step back but hesitated to run, did she was to turn her back on this killer? "They're really dead, right?" she asked. "This isn't a movie of some kind, right?"

"A movie?" he asked, sounding chillingly perplexed.

"Yes, you know- movie… I think-" She noticed the lack of reply and realized this was no movie, someone would've shouted 'cut' by now if it was. She was no actress working with a script, and even if he was the crew would've called cut as soon as she had been spotted. She was not on the cast, what was the point of improvisation? Also, what about the Dome of the Rock? Sets did not come that big and elaborate. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she had somehow came to be in Jerusalem. The killer's gaze never wavered from her and she noted all the weapons, too many for an action hero, they typically had one or two as according to the rule of cool. He had no less than a long sword, a short sword, multiple knives, and what looked like a retractable blade on his arm. In the silence of the alley it sank in, she was indeed in Jerusalem. Then judging by the clothing and the lack of modern things, she had just traveled in time as well as space. She didn't want to hazard a guess at how far back she had been transported. She didn't need to guess to know it was a dangerous time. Her knives rose instinctively as her eyes narrowed.

He moved like a striking cobra, closing the distance between them, grabbing her wrists before she could react. The pressure of his grip was vice-like, constricting and crushing the bones in her wrists, causing her fingers to begin uncurling on their own. Even with a missing ring finger on his left hand he made the bones in her right forearm compress slightly.

"Let go!" she commanded.

"Not until you put those toys away," he replied, as his grip relaxed a fraction.

She tried to rip free but it did not work, so she looked up into his eyes and unleashed what she hoped was her most venomous glare, but the honey-brown eyes gleaming at her from underneath the hood almost froze her solid in a single instant. His gaze was like the stare of a basilisk, stopping anything and everything she might have tried. Her anger fled in terror and a chill ran right down her spine and into her toes.

"Alright," she mumbled. The knives flicked from reverse to foreword grip and she used her thumbs to simultaneously depress the release and fold them. The blades hid away and she opened her palms, showing him the concealed weapons.

"Interesting weapons," he remarked, letting go of her wrists.

"They do their jobs," she replied with a shrug.

He walked past her to the mouth of the alley, "Get out of here before the bodies are discovered," he warned.

"And where would I go?" she asked before she realized what a bad idea it was.

He paused and glanced back, appraising her from head to toe. She could feel that cold stare roving over her frame and like the first time she found her whole body chilled to the bone. This was a man that had just killed two people in cold blood in front of her eyes. Despite the horror of the thought she couldn't be anything more than grateful, if only slightly terrified at the ease with which he could kill. Hannibal Lecter didn't have a thing on this guy.

"Are you the thief they were looking for?" he asked.

"No, that was someone else. I think they just went after me because I'm not from around these parts," she replied.

"Dressed like that- I wouldn't be surprised. It hardly seems appropriate," he noted, taking another step towards the mouth of the alley.

She followed; wary of the bodies behind her. She didn't even want to look at the guards back there and see the blood one more time. "Where I come from, this is perfectly appropriate," she argued.

"And where is that?" he asked, sounding dubious.

"Vancouver," she replied automatically. Her hand shot up and clapped unto her mouth, realizing what she had just uttered.

"Never heard of it," he replied as he walked.

She followed behind him; his pace was even and innocent, as if nothing had just happened. She crossed her arms and thought about it; odds are if she told him that she suspected time travel he would probably kill her. It was probably preposterous a thought to someone from this time, whatever this time was.

"What year is it?" she asked.

"Eleven ninety-one," he replied. "How can you not know that?"

"I've been traveling, I lost track of time. Vancouver is very far away, very, very far," she replied quickly, maybe a bit too quickly. Inwardly she was cringing, eight hundred and eighteen years, what an amount of time to travel back, and right into the height of the dark ages in Europe, the crusades at that! "I should thank you for that thing back there," she added.

He didn't reply and for a moment she thought he might not be paying attention to her at all, but as they came upon one of the many intersections, he stopped. She looked around his large frame and noticed more guards.

"Ah-," she began.

As if hearing her, the guards turned and one of them started with recognition, "There's the other!" he shouted.

"Not again!" she groaned.

The four guards took off, drawing their weapons.

"Run," the killer commanded.

"Don't have to tell me twice, I'm gone," turning on her toes she ran, already palming her knives. She kept going until she ended up on a nearly impassable market street. The crowd here was so thick that she could not make out any single person from the horde. She decided that she would use that for her advantage as she melted into the crowd, ducking lower so her blond hair would not stick out as much in this crowd. She slowed her pace to a careful walk, making sure to avoid all obstacles and people.

The guards stopped when they saw the crowd, she watched them from the corner of her eye as they tried to find her, to pick her out from among the people. Ducking under one of the stall eaves she used the overhang's shadow to dull her hair and make her harder to spot, all the while she pretended to be interested in the array of fruits before her.

The guards merged into the crowd, still looking, still unable to spot her from the rest of the throng.

Smiling kindly at the man at the stall, she edged away, keeping to the shadows of the other stalls. There were a number of alleys to choose from; one of them had an overhang that cast a deep shadow which she decided was her best bet. It was also narrow, which if need be would give her a tactical advantage. Carefully she made her way towards it, but as she was passing by another alley, a hand shot out, grabbed her around the mouth, another grabbed her arm, and she was pulled forcibly into the shadows.

She would've shrieked had it not been for the hand over her mouth. The arms pulled her flat against a broad chest, and she felt something hard poke into the area around her kidney.

"That other alley is also a dead end," her captor spoke before she could deploy her knives and go at him. She recognized that voice as belonging to the white-robed killer and relaxed. His hand slid off her mouth, but he pulled her further into the alley and out of sight. "Why are they so keen on you?"

"Go ask them, though- I do have an idea."

"I want to know, I can't be saving you for the rest of your stay here."

She grinned and stepped away from him, slipping her knives into the leather holder again before she turned to face him. "Yes, well, if I say what I think, you'll probably just shank me for being insane," she murmured. "Promise not to, no- swear you won't- and I will tell you."

The cold look was back, half perplexed, half annoyed. She could see just the barest hints of those cold piercing eyes in the depth of the hood's shadow. She could tell he was not in the mood for shenanigans and it caused her to gulp. "I'm really not from around here."

"You already said that," the frustration in his voice was unmistakable now.

"I'm not from around this time either; I'm from the year two-thousand-and-nine." She took a step back at that, wondering if her death was forthcoming any second now, but then she saw the faintest of shifts in his stance as he contemplated her revelation.

"Prove it," he demanded.

"How- oh, I know!" she dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out her cell phone. "Here, take a look at this." She handed him the device.

He took it wordlessly and looked it over, turning the red device over and back again in his hand, pausing to stare at the glowing screen. "What is it?"

"It's a communication device, in my time I can communicate with other devices like it by simply dialing up their unique number." She sided over and raised her hand, pointing at the screen as she spoke. "But see, says no signal right here. There are no like devices like that here, so it can't find them." she indicated the red banner. "And see here," she pointed to the bottom, "The date. It says June 13th, 2009. Not whatever today is in 1191."

He handed the device back and she slipped it back into her jacket pocket and stepped away. "I choose to believe you for now," he announced.

"Thank you," she bowed her head a few degrees.

"But that still does not explain why the guards want you," he began.

"I'm odd, I mean- have you ever seen clothing like mine? They mistook me for an accomplice of that one thief."

"And are you a thief?" he asked.

She hesitated; honestly she didn't know if she already told him too much. He seemed willing to suspend disbelief, anyone else would've probably taken her for a demon already and she'd be in trouble, but this killer seemed more intelligent than that. It was as if he could sense that she was not lying. "Not directly," she began. "I am not exactly on the right side of the law, but I'm not a thief. I'm a member of a band of people like me; mostly it's a bond of hardship. I'm an arson specialist."

"Name?"

"Cassandra, but I prefer simply Sandy. Sandy Lawrence if you will."

"Come," he ordered, turning down the alley.

"Hey wait! Can I get a name?" Sandy asked.

He glanced back but did not reply; the chilled glare told her enough that she was not getting a name yet. She sighed, shook her head, but followed.

"Can you at least tell me where you're taking me?"

"Somewhere safe," was his entire cryptic reply.

She pouted and kept walking, what more could she do? He didn't seem like the type who would save her life twice, only to kill her himself. Seemed like an awful waste of time and effort. It did not mean she was ready to blindly trust, but she was willing to see where things would go. As long as she was stuck here in Jerusalem of 1191, she could use all the allies she got, even if they were cold-blooded killers. One did what one had to do to survive. It wasn't like she didn't normally hang out with some shady characters at home; her friends were shady enough.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:** (Henceforth all the little pieces of technical trivia to be found here, the allusions and symbolism is yours to spot.)

Kris Blade: Considered to be a more ornamental than practical shape of blade.

Sandy's Last Name: It's an allusion to T. E. Lawrence, AKA 'Lawrence of Arabia' (But there is no actual relation, the last name is rather common).

**Author Notes:** Since you are reading this, I want to thank you for getting through this 'pilot chapter' of mine. As promised in the head author note up top, this will be a somewhat longer note and will explain a couple things that are important enough to warrant an explanation, or at least I feel they do. Foremost I want to say that Chaos Theory will be written and treated very much like a television series, with regular updates of this general length. I do have a general plot outline developed, a direction so to say. It is primarily a character-driven story, as my writing is heavily influenced by other great television series like JAG, Star Trek, and now NCIS in that they have character arcs and plot arcs, it's chemistry heavy with no real resolution until 'just the right moment' so to say. I personally enjoy the chemistry more than the resolution. As a character, the 'real life superhero' groups showcased in the media in the United States inspired Cassandra's background; you can look them up on Google if you do not believe me.

I would like to also say that Assassin's Creed is a very dear thing to me, as I have lived in Israel for five years, and hold the place very dear to my heart. I have been in Jerusalem a number of times, hence any descriptions of the city that differ from 'game' visuals are based on my own memories of the old city as well as research poured into seeking the city as it was during the proper time frame. I am a bit of a history nerd, so I do include research into the story on the major details, however this being fan fiction, if you notice something slip through, please pardon me. That is pretty much all that needed to be said in this pilot, so if you have loved the first chapter of Chaos Theory, please feel free to review with any criticism and suggestions, I love reviews, and I am not touchy when it comes to constructive criticism.


	2. Tricks of the Trade

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Well this 'episode' two. Those of you who reviewed really made my day with your support and positive feedback, thank you so much. I hope I don't disappoint you people. As with the last chapter there will be a longer note at the end addressing issues and possible questions raised by both this chapter and reviews. I think its best I do have a nice long footnote for this stuff, as one person suggested I do. Call it 'Director Commentary' henceforth too. Well enjoy your chapter.

_**

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Chapter II:**_ _Tricks of the Trade_

They cut through the alleys, keeping off the main streets where the guards could spot them again. Sandy was quick to realize that old Jerusalem was a variable labyrinth; there was no semblance of sense or order in the alleys and the streets. There was no planning system in place, nothing like the neat grid patterns of her time. Furthermore every alley and every passage looked, felt, and often smelt absolutely the same as the last one. In places the cream walls were covered in illegible graffiti scrawled on, or scratched into the plaster, and if one didn't watch out the odds of getting hit by falling water dumped carelessly out the window was high.

After the third darkened alley they passed through, she gave up on trying to figure out where they were heading. Everything was simply too dizzying to remember, and yet her companion seemingly knew exactly where he was going. Which was explainable, this was his city; he knew it, probably the same way she knew every back alley of Vancouver.

"We're going up on the roofs now," he suddenly spoke as he stopped by a ladder leaning on the side of yet another bland building.

She nodded and watched as he scaled up the ladder with speed that would've made Spiderman envious. She followed uncertainly, clambering up the rungs slowly as the ladder shook and wobbled under her. On the final rung she paused before she could figure out how to get on the roof itself, but she managed, it being not as hard as it looked.

He was scanning across the rooftops, and in the sun's glare everything swam to her eyes. Groping for her bag she opened the flap and unzipped it. The sound of the metal zipper sliding caused him to turn and look at her.

"Just getting my sunglasses," she explained, reaching into the bag she pulled out her case. As soon as the glasses were on, she was glad for the polarization on the lenses. They were mostly transparent and mirrored, meant to protect her eyes from UV and glare without altering her vision too much. "Too bright," she felt the need to add, to explain probably another strange future thing if he was interested. There was no change in his expression to indicate either way, and she could not see his eyes due to the hood. She returned the now empty glasses case inside and closed the bag.

"Don't wear that where people will see it," he spoke suddenly as he began to walk across the roof.

"Oh, I know I shouldn't. But right now it's okay, you know the big secret." She followed him calmly, watching her footing carefully. She couldn't help but feel more and more like a thief by the second; it just didn't feel right being up here. Rather quickly she began to feel like she was boiling in her skin. Her jacket, just right for the early summer evenings of Vancouver was far too hot for the early summer of Jerusalem. She wondered if he was hot as well, but seeing as he wore all white, she thought he probably wasn't.

They came to the side of a roof where the narrow side street between two buildings was bridged by three wooden planks of wood. He crossed it with no effort or break in his step, but she hesitated, poking the planks with her toe to check how safe they really were. They looked pretty rickety to her and looking down it was a sufficiently high drop unto bare hard ground.

He did not wait, but kept walking, a silent message if any.

Not one to be left behind she crossed the planks, using her arms spread wide for balance. The planks were sturdy enough, but they still bent and sagged ever so slightly under her weight. She rushed across them, fearing that any second now they would snap in the middle and send her falling to the hard ground. Once across and safe on the solid surface of the other building's roof she followed him as quickly as she could, stopping only when they came to a building with a small walled side yard, complete with a latticework roof, which had a sizable gap.

"Stay up here for now," he commanded.

She nodded and watched as he simply jumped down into the gap. Surprised she peered down, seeing him unhurt and unbothered by the drop. She whistled, "Well color me impressed."

He sent her a cold, almost warning look and walked across the yard and vanished through an open door.

Altair strolled through the door of the assassin bureau, already knowing what was coming a split second before he was even noticed.

"Back so soon?" Malik asked, looking up from his records, his tone hinting at an omitted part that probably contained an insult in there somewhere.

"Something came up," Altair replied coolly.

"I'm not hearing bells, there are no guards trampling all over, so it must not be something you messed up utterly. I'm almost impressed." Malik replied.

Altair opened his mouth to retort, but just then his acute hearing picked up a barely audible sound of something hitting the ground, a louder thud followed, and then a loud curse, then silence. One look told him enough, Malik was instantly on alert. Knowing time was scant, Altair charged for the door, beating the bureau keeper by a hair. Outside he was not surprised to see the woman sitting on the floor of the yard, rubbing her left ankle arduously.

"I take it all back, Altair. Alarm bells, trampling guards, and the regular uproar would be nothing compared to this." Malik spoke.

"I'm sorry," the woman apologized instantly. "But there was a man on the rooftop some distance over, and-"

"The archer guard," Altair cut her off, choosing to ignore Malik's comments; at this moment he had to keep bureau keeper from wasting his earlier efforts of keeping this odd woman alive.

She nodded, but the dumbfounded look on her face did not vanish. The child-like quality of the look was almost comical.

"Explain now," Malik demanded.

Sandy stared first the more familiar killer -now she knew his name- and then her eyes wandered to the mystery man beside him. Instead of sitting there, getting the full of two cold glares she got to her feet and tried to contain the wince. When she had tried to jump down, she had landed wrong on the small fountain set into the wall, and her left ankle had turned a funny angle. The pain was beginning to numb, but the joint was somewhat tender now.

"Let her explain," Altair replied to the other man.

Taking it as a cue she approached slowly, raising her sunglasses and pushing them back to rest over the top of her head. "Hello, I'm Sandy. Well it's kind of a long story-" she stopped, but got no response from the other man. Looking up at him she couldn't help but feel a little intimidated by the dark haired man and his dark brown eyes which were focused on her in a calculating glare. It was hard to miss that he wore a similar white outfit to Altair, except on top of it all he wore a black robe. What came belatedly was the realization that his left sleeve was sewn up for a reason; he was also missing most of his left arm. She hazarded a guess that it had something to do with an occupation or a guild, a dangerous one at that. Given that Altair seemed to know a number of gruesome ways to end someone's life prematurely and was not afraid to do it, she had a feeling she knew what that occupation was, and where she was. It made here fidget even more.

"Don't kill her, Malik. She is probably not lying," Altair stated before he vanished back through the door, leaving her with this man.

"Well let's hear it," Malik prompted.

"I already explained it to him," she paused to gather her thoughts, "and well, this will sound utterly preposterous- I'm not from around here, I'm not even from around _now_. It seems like I traveled eight hundred eighteen years into my past, I'm from the year two thousand and nine."

"That is preposterous," Malik stated, he wasn't impressed in the least bit.

"Show him that… _thing_ you showed me." Altair re-appeared, carrying a wineskin bottle in his hands that he uncorked and proceeded to drink from.

"This," Sandy pulled out her cell phone and offered it to Malik. "If you look at the screen, the clock is still keeping future time and date."

"If that's not odd enough, look at her hair, I have only seen that color on the odd templar."

"And she could be one of them, or a spy." Malik replied.

"Unlikely. Though her intent to skewer the guards in that alley had been real enough, her fear of me was even more genuine."

"A, I was not intending to _skewer_ them, I was merely defending myself, and B, well excuse me mister master assassin, but you just killed two men in front of my eyes. Was I supposed to drop on my knees and worship?" her tone rose a notch with the veiled accusation, and she noted just a faint twitch in the set of his mouth that seemed to hint at amusement. Unperturbed now, she went on after gathering a breath, "As for being a Templar, if I got my history right, most of the Templars with king Richard should have just begun the siege of Acre. There shouldn't be any here in Jerusalem." _Not yet_ _anyways_, she wanted to add, but stopped upon realizing what she was talking about and how much of a problem it could be for time. She wasn't stupid; she had read and watched enough science fiction to know that messing with the past was bad news all around; you could never fully predict all the variables in judging how the future may alter.

The silence lingered for a long, laden moment. She did not miss the sudden interest in the eyes of the establishment keeper, even as Altair did not seem bothered, opting to take another long drink for the wineskin.

"Well let's use this to test you, will the siege succeed?" Malik asked.

Sandy sighed and nodded, "Unfortunately yes, but it won't come for another month." She replied. "I will not say how they do it, because honestly I do not know. Furthermore, what I already said could probably do enough damage as is. I will not reveal any more knowledge. It's best I don't." Sandy realizing that if she was to prove to them that she wasn't lying, it was best she offered some knowledge, but not too much, only the things that could not be controlled or altered easily. Even if they knew of the conquest of Acre, there was little they could do in such a short time.

"We'll see in a month then- whether she's a liar or not," Malik concluded. He did not sound pleased, and Sandy did not blame him. Malik handed her the cell phone back, and Sandy instantly slipped it back into her pocket as she took a couple steps back and tried to melt into the scenery.

Altair corked off the wineskin and set it down by the pillows strewn at the side of the yard. Wordlessly he approached the wall under the gap in the latticework through which they had entered and effortlessly got back up unto the roof.

"Where are we going now?" Sandy asked, looking up.

"_You_ are going nowhere." He replied, crouching at the edge, peering down at her. For a brief moment she could see those cold, almost glowing eyes. "I have something to do which you interrupted."

"Well excuse me" she bit out, voice laced with righteous indignation as her hands rose to her hips.

"If you try anything-" he left the threat open.

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I think I pulled my ankle coming down."

"Good." With that said he vanished like a ghost.

"Arrogant ass," Sandy muttered, unsure whether he said 'good' to her not going anywhere, her pulling her ankle, or both. "Who does he think he is?"

"The fool has an ignorant notion that he is the best," Malik replied, clearly amused.

Sandy whirled around to face him. She had utterly forgotten about the other man and for a moment she had to reprimand herself. "Me being a woman probably doesn't help," she muttered.

Malik silently returned to his work inside the house, making no comment on her statement.

Sandy stood there for a long moment, contemplating what to do next. She was stuck here, and in more ways than one. Being here, wherever here was, it was like being trapped in a cell within a cell. She didn't know anything about life in the past, or what was going on. All she knew was that here it was dangerous, more so than Vancouver on the bad days. What more, she'd have to rely on one very arrogant killer-for-hire, and whatever associates and comrades he had. She had never felt this vulnerable and helpless before, and she hated it.

The pain in her ankle still throbbed, so she sat down among the pillows strewn on the ground, the carpet underneath them was surprisingly soft. She slipped off her leather jacket and tossed it among the pillows, the red tee shirt underneath was almost fully sodden with sweat so she laid back and slipped the sunglasses back over her eyes. There was little of anything to do other than cool off and try to figure out how in the name of all that was holy she ended up here.

She could remember the shock from the table, and the feelings of her cell phone vibrating as in response in her jacket pocket, then the all encompassing numbness, a sensation of floating, and the darkness. She grabbed the jacket and pulled the device out to inspect it. Nothing changed other than the time display, was it showing the proper time? If it were that would mean she had been out for a number of hours after being transported here. Did anyone even notice her missing yet? Would anyone honestly care?

She tossed the device up and watched it flip once before she caught it. It was then, staring at the screen that she first noticed the oddest thing, the power indicator was pulsing. She had missed that previously since it was so tiny up there in the corner of the screen. Normally it only blinked when it was charging, going solid when it was full. The meter was showing a full battery but it was still blinking. Whether it was damage of some kind, she didn't know, but there had to be. She knew she had limited power, once the battery ran flat, that's that. "Might as well make the best of it, huh?" she murmured to the device. Reaching into her bag she rummaged about until she found her headphones. She plugged them into the cell phone and brought up the MP3 player. With the headphones now in her ears she set the volume to half of maximum and hit shuffle, placing the device unto her stomach as she crossed her arms behind her head and relaxed.

She was jolted awake some time later by a thud as something impacted the floor, realizing all too quickly that she had somehow managed to fall asleep. She opened her eyes and discovered that it was not something, but only Altair coming back. It was close to sunset now; the yard was no longer filled with sunlight, and somehow it made his presence even more menacing.

She yanked out one of her headphones. "Welcome back," she murmured with a small grin, pulling her sunglasses off. Altair did not acknowledge her as he breezed past and vanished through the door. She sighed and shut off music, coiled the headphones around her cell phone and pushed the button for the thing to turn off. Might as well conserve whatever power she had left. "Thank you, Sandy," She grumbled bitterly. "Oh you're welcome." Her stomach echoed the sentiment by letting out a loud grumble.

Sandy could hear the talk inside now, just the barest snippets carried on the hot air, nothing too understandable, but the mention of a merchant target told her enough to know that she did not want to know any more. She stretched out on the pillows, pulling all her stiffened muscles into a long languid stretch, curling her toes like a cat. When a bread bun hit her stomach; she almost stretched too far and hurt herself.

"Eat," Altair commanded.

"Thanks," she picked up the bread, and watched him as he sat across the yard, there were more pillows there now, some that she had not seen the last time. "Don't I get water?" she asked.

He ripped into his bread and pointed to her left, she glanced at the wineskin he left before.

Sandy sighed and scrambled over to grab it, when she moved back to her seating spot among the pillows she could feel that gaze again, despite being utterly unable to see it, and now in the gloom of evening the shadow concealing most of his face seemed even more fathomless.

"What?" she asked.

"You have a tattoo?" he asked.

It took sandy a long moment grasp what he meant and she slapped a hand unto her right upper arm. "Yes," she replied. "It's something all my friends and I have." She glanced down at the tattoo, it was peeping from underneath the hem of her tee shirt's sleeve, only the ankh and the talon of a bird was visible. She hiked up her sleeve and revealed the tribal bird clutching the ankh in its right talon, its wings were drawn as if flaming, and its beak was thrown back into a shriek, in its left talon it carried a stiletto knife. "The ankh symbolizes our group, we go by 'immortals', and the bird symbolizes my identity within them, it's a phoenix, the bird that does not fear flames, but is instead reborn in their fury."

In the uncomfortable silence that passed after she finished her explanation she was suddenly very self-conscious, she uncorked the wineskin and raised it until some of the water poured into her mouth, it was almost as warm as the air around her, the dark wineskin having laid in the sun for a couple hours, hence it did not do anything for her parched throat.

"So-" she began, corking the wineskin and setting it aside, unsure how to breach the topic. "What do you plan to have me do now?"

"Nothing," he replied.

"I can't be cooped up here every day while you're off gallivanting, causing mayhem-"

The cold stare was back, and once again her skin was crawling under its intensity.

Sandy rushed in to explain herself, "I don't want to be stuck here every day. Frankly that's like keeping me in a prison cell, and I'm pretty sure I'll go insane. I'm like a wandering cat, I normally go where the mood strikes me, so this is not something I enjoy. I could help, at least- well you saved me twice, and I want to return the favor."

"And how do you propose to help?" he wondered.

"I don't intend to be anywhere near the scene when you do what you do best. I'm not even sure if I approve of _that_ part, though I realize my view is based on the difference between now, and when I come from, I'm not about to bring up my time's morals into this. _Still_- I owe you my life twice over, and I'm willing to help in my own way. I said it before; I'm an arson specialist. I heard parts of your talk with Malik, something about a merchant doing no good. I imagine he'd have a guard, you really don't need-"

"What I don't _need_ is your gratitude wasting my saving your life," he cut in. "Arson will get you executed faster than assassinations."

"If they catch me," Sandy argued.

She could feel that stare intensify, and although he didn't say anything, she knew the words hung in the air unspoken, he was dubious if she could keep herself from being caught, and rightly so she realized he had a reason to be. He knew the dangers of this time more than she did, and she realized that maybe he was right, maybe it was a stupid idea, but she'd be dead before she admitted that to his face, it was a matter of principle. Taking back her offer now would probably be worse than being caught. She grumbled something inarticulate and began to eat. The meal was uncomfortable in its silence as the sunlight continued to fade.

Before long Malik appeared with a lit oil lamp he set down on the ground before vanishing inside, he re-appeared a split second later with a basket of fruit and cheese and eased himself into a sitting position on a large pillow. His food was on top of the basket and he retrieved it before pushing the basket closer towards her as he joined the silent meal.

"Thank you," Sandy bowed her head as she picked one of the apples before she returned to her seat. Things only seemed to become even more awkward after that. As she continued to eat in silence she found her eyes straying to the oil lamp, starring at the small but surprisingly powerful flame as it danced and swayed to and fro.

For almost ten years now she had thing for fire, doctors called it unhealthy, but to her fire was something that was beautiful in its primal nature. Something that should be respected and used wisely, something she held sacred in a way. Fire was both the keeper of life, and the taker of life. Handled right it could warm the dreariest of rooms, and if mishandled it could destroy everything it touched.

"I'm interested in the differences between our times," Malik spoke up after a seemingly eternal silence. "Precisely, this difference in morals you speak of."

"Well-" Sandy paused, tearing her eyes from the light of the lamp, chewing thoughtfully. "I guess I could say it is more peaceful in a way. Sure scuffles and petty crime happen, but it's not so dangerous on the streets now. Our police -city guards in a way- they don't prosecute people for looking weird or out of place."

"I see," Malik stated calmly as he contemplated the revelation.

"But it is worse too, the pace of life is so hectic with everyone rushing about their business. Technology has progressed so far that- say you wanted to go to Europe from here, not a problem. What was it now? Five hours by flying craft to Paris?" she continued, scratching at the back of her head absentmindedly. "I really shouldn't be talking about technology though. Though we don't normally travel through time, our scholars say altering the past in any way could unpredictably alter the future, they call it the Chaos Theory."

"Education has progressed far as well, it would seem," Malik remarked.

"Everyone is taught some basics, but higher education is still highway robbery. They charge insane amounts of money for that."

"Is that how you learned your, _craft_?" Altair wondered.

Sandy's eyes narrowed, she could feel a second meaning in his words, but in the interest of not antagonizing her lifelines she grinned and chose her words carefully. "Oh no, that's entirely something I taught myself. Since we're already on the topic, I might as well tell you about the Immortals, since you seem so _interested_." She pronounced the word like a grave insult, at which point the tip in his lips changed, he understood the meaning all to well.

Sandy smiled, hoping her smile conveyed that she wanted nothing more than give him a piece of her mind. "We protect those whom the police can do little for because of shortcomings in the law. To join, a trial is involved, a display of skill. I showed mine by burning an eatery to the ground. The owner had rats the size of- well this big," she raised her hands about seven inches apart. "And people were getting sick because the rats got into the food. The restaurant was reported to the authorities a number of times, but the person who came to inspect it was the owner's brother-in-law. He pretended he did not see the rats."

"I find it hard to believe you were not caught," Malik stated.

"Me too, I was pretty sure I screwed something up. I planned for it, I got an idea when I found out the place was heavily insured. That is, if it were somehow destroyed in a genuine accident, the owner would get a lot of money. But in the event that he himself set it on fire- Arson added to attempted insurance fraud and the health code violations that would invariably come up… It wouldn't be a short sentence. I made it look like he did just that." She stopped there, deciding that she had said enough. She wasn't trying to sound impressive or anything, just answering a question that she felt was asked of her.

"And you're not going to tell us in detail how you did it?" Altair asked.

Sandy bristled at his tone; out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Malik had become aware of the thinly veiled animosity between them. She grinned again and tried to sound polite, "It's my bag of tricks and I don't reveal it. Besides, I don't want to come off too arrogant by bragging." She had tried to sling back an insult, but his lack of response defeated it. Deciding not to antagonize him further, she drank more of the wineskin, but the water inside was still simply too warm, and seemed to make her all the thirstier. "Thank you for the food and water," she smiled appreciatively at Malik.

"You are welcome," he replied.

The silence once again lapsed and she still couldn't get over how uncomfortable she felt in their presence. It was like every alarm bell in her body was shooting off a warning to watch out. What for, she did not honestly know. She heard a scraping sound and instantly snapped her eyes to the source of it. Altair had removed his sword and set it aside; next to it he laid out the heavy leather belt, which was more like light armor. His short sword -harness and all- joined the pile as well before the assassin settled down among his pillows.

With a start she realized that in this time, with little to do after sunset, it was practically time for sleep. This brought on a frown; she had slept the afternoon away, what would she do through the night? Could she even sleep around a confirmed killer? She finished her bread in silence as twilight turned to evening and the last slivers of natural light vanished, the flickering oil lamp cast long shadows around the space. Ever so slowly the ambient air began to cool, and yet the very walls and floor of the house around her radiated the heat absorbed during the day. A peculiar sensation came over her, and it wasn't long before she found herself alone with Altair. Malik had drifted back inside, leaving the oil lamp at the center of floor; its small light seemingly becoming a barrier between the two of them.

Altair laid down among the few pillows set up for him, and suddenly she noticed that there were far less on his side than hers. She looked down at the rich rug on which she sat among the sea of pillows and realized with a start that this was his intended bed she was hogging. An epiphany happened, no wonder he had been crabby to say the least.

"Hey, we can trade," she offered, stumbling along, unsure if her conclusion was right. "Beds I mean, I-"

He grunted in reply but did not otherwise move. She wondered whether he was asleep already or just faking, but wasn't about to try and find out, he still had that lethal wrist blade on his person. Sandy reasoned that the best thing to do was to leave the offer open. She lay back among the pillows and grabbed one of them, putting it over her stomach.

Through the latticework she could see a sigh that astounded her, stars, thousands and thousands of them, glittering high in the night sky like jewels. It was such an amazing awe-inspiring sight that she felt her jaw loosen. It certainly wasn't something one saw every day in Vancouver, or any other large city where the light pollution blocked out all but the brightest stars. After a time Sandy decided to kick off her sneakers, using her feet she pushed them to the corner and off the carpet. With that done, she settled comfortably and pressed the pillow to her stomach like it was a teddy bear. Minutes passed like hours as she lay there staring at the stars, and it wasn't long before the silence and warm air made her nod off again.

Sandy woke again when a chill raced down her back, contrasting with her front, which was oddly warm. She found herself lying on her side, hadn't she been lying on her back? The ambient air around her was cool, signaling that it was still night or at least very early morning, the walls and floor had long since given off all the heat they had absorbed during the day. She shifted slightly, hearing a faint pop in her back, but she couldn't stretch out fully to let her spine realign as something was restraining her full movement. It was hard, like a piece of metal, and it dug uncomfortably into her side and lower ribs.

She cracked one eye open and recoiled when she could only see white. In that split second she knew why she was warm on one side. Altair was lying there on his side, facing her, with his right hand under the pillow beneath his head and his left arm slung over her waist. It was the mechanism of his wrist blade that was bruising her ribs. She was within inches of the wall, almost penned in by his frame, and he was radiating heat like a convection oven.

Fury surged like a flame inside her, instantly banishing the chill of the night. When she offered a trade; this was not what she meant! She contemplated waking him, but realized that if her movements had not woken him already, she'd have to use force, and that could result in an injury to her, seeing as he slept only slightly less armed than he usually was. The rest of his weapons were still across the yard, but he was still dangerous.

She scooted back as far as she could, pressing her back flush to the cold wall; the contact caused her to shiver and his fingers -now on her waist- to flex as if even through sleep he felt the shiver. Sandy contemplated throwing his hand off, but after a second decided against it, she did not know how the mechanism of the blade worked. The last thing she wanted was to have it accidently go off. If remaining unharmed meant he got to cop a feel, she could live with it, couldn't she? It wasn't like his hand was somewhere more compromising. It was a little like slow dancing in the club with hot guys you just met and didn't really know. There was a parallel in there she reasoned, and it did not mean he wouldn't get a complimentary earful once he _was_ awake.

Her eyes trailed up his chest to his face and with a start she realized the hood had either slipped down some time during the night, or that he had finally shed it. Now that she could see his face, she was taken aback momentarily by how handsome he was, the faint scar at the right corner of his mouth only added a roguish accent instead of detracting. Seeing the full picture made her realize that there was more to the club parallel than even she was comfortable with. However, surprise did not last long; nothing could distract and restrain the annoyance she felt.

She glared, at him, hoping just the force of her glare could awaken him. Wasn't there an urban legend that people couldn't sleep if they had vicious glares aimed at them? If only looks could kill, he'd be grievously injured right now. Eventually her eyes began to sting due to a lack of blinking and the almost unholy glow of his white tunic in the moonlight. She blinked the sting and the spots away and snorted. "You just wait," she muttered.

His hand twitched again, almost in response.

Her eyes flew back to his face and she did not miss the tiny twitch of his lips, restraining the now almost familiar tip at the corner of his lips, it looked almost like his a suppressed smirk. Sandy raised her hand, balled her fist, and swung in a mock attack. His left hand shot up and grabbed her fist in a split second, as if he knew exactly where it was despite his closed eyes and now exposed act. His hand was much larger than hers, utterly enveloping her fist, she could feel the lack of ring finger, but the rest gripped her fist almost like a vice.

"You _are_ awake!" Sandy cried in outrage.

"Not so loud," Altair murmured, keeping his eyes closed.

Sandy yanked her fist free from his loosened grip and lowered her arm to lie on the curve of her side. He laid his arm down between them; the metal armor lining the forearm caught the moonlight almost like a mirror, momentarily making her see spots again. Blinking them away she took a deep breath, "What's the meaning of this?" she asked. "I said trade, not share! You apparently need-"

"You were shivering. It is unusually cold tonight." He explained.

"So you-"

"Would you have preferred the alternative?" he interrupted coldly as his eyes opened.

Sandy might have swallowed her tongue for a long moment under the force of his basilisk stare. "Maybe," she choked out, having to force the air past her frozen vocal cords.

Altair closed his eyes, "While bragging makes one too arrogant, lack of gratitude does not make one humble," he murmured.

Sandy snorted again. "Oh we're bringing that up now, are we?" she asked.

"I believe we're even now," he replied, opening one eye.

Sandy sighed, "I'm sorry," she stated.

Altair's eyes flew open and for the briefest instance surprise flickered in their abyssal depths.

Sandy smiled shyly, "I overreacted, a little bit, well- alot. You meant no harm… at least you better not have-" she glared for a split second.

"You still have those toys you use." He replied.

Sandy's hand flew to the small of her back, patting the leather pouch where she kept her stilettos, both were still there. She thought she understood his subtle message, but she knew that her knives would be of little use against him; he was so much larger and probably a lot stronger than her. She smiled and whispered a faint 'thanks', keeping her eyes locked on his hand still between them, not daring to look into his face.

"Try to get back to sleep; dawn is not for another two hours." His voice was different, deeper, warmer, but still frigid.

Sandy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. That's when she felt his arm move; once again he slung it over her waist and pulled her closer into his ambient halo of heat. Close enough to warm her, but far enough that they did not touch fully. With a start she realized that this was the position all along. The limited contact had another purpose that she understood quite suddenly.

"You really are just keeping that _thing_ not pointed at me, are you?" she asked.

"If by _that thing_ you mean my hidden blade, then yes." He replied.

Sandy smiled and shifted around, getting more comfortable, relaxing her back. She pushed his arm a little closer to her hip so that the metal mechanism would not dig into her ribs and lowered her arm between them. In the confined space her fingers just brushed his chest, and she grinned privately. Let it be then, an exercise in survival tactics if nothing more, she would be a mature woman about it. Here in this time, in this strange place she felt safe lying next to a killer who seemed to have some morals and honor. The absurdities of the situation were both laughable and tear rending, but Sandy knew she would not have liked the alternative.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Siege of Acre: King Richard only arrived at Acre in June 8th, 1191, where he immediately ordered the construction of siege engines to assault the city. However it would not fall until slightly over a month later on July 12th. Little bit of a history lesson there.

Sandy's usage of 'Ass' and Malik's reply: I feel this needs explaining to be understood fully. While Sandy applies the word to him to mean someone who is intolerable and rude. That meaning is different from what Malik would understand. He would connect her usage of the word to her calling Altair a donkey. In Arabic being called that connotes stupidity almost exclusively.

Sandy's Tattoo: In those times not only did women not have them, they were not for decorations. Most tattoos were dishonorable brands. So yea, another 'time gap' conflict. But it's a rather small detail there.

Arson: In medieval times, arson was a 'worse' crime than assassinations. Simply because fire was so notoriously difficult to put out. It wasn't uncommon for it to simply burn itself out, taking a couple city blocks with it.

**Director's Commentary:**

Well this one won't be long, but here I want to add a few notes for this and that that don't really belong in the tidbits. Regarding the point of view choice, in case you are wondering why most of the story is strictly from Sandy's PoV, there is definitely a method to my madness. I feel that if the story were from Altair's PoV, he would lose some of the 'mystery' that hovers around him. It would be harder to portray the sheer power of presence he possesses and exercises over Sandy. Moreover, the games of word-chess wouldn't be half as fun; the drama really wouldn't be there.

In addition, one reviewer made the observation that Altair is suddenly talking more than he does in the game. There is a method in that madness too; it's my interpretation of his character. We never really see him actually interact with a woman in the game, other than Maria of course. However Sandy is obviously different, she is not seen as much of a threat, she does not wield a sword or wear armor, and furthermore her knives are in fact very feeble. Hence he talks to her a little more than anyone else, and even then he's still a jerk half the time. There is also the fact that Altair does have his eagle vision, which will be interpreted in Chaos Theory as more of an ability to see the aura. One look at Sandy's and he'd see she means him no harm.


	3. Mind games, Playing with Fire

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Well this is chapter three. Before you read it, please be aware that within this chapter, Sandy uses a theoretical improvised Molotov cocktail. Please do not attempt to build your own 'Egg Molotov', as doing so may result in fire, personal injury, and property damage. Please do not try it at home; Sandy is what she'll call herself an _expert_.

_**

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Chapter III**_: _Mind games, Playing with Fire_

Sandy was not sure how she managed to fall asleep, or if it could even be called sleep since she was effortlessly jarred awake by a pair of very light footsteps. She was still warm, meaning that Altair had not moved an inch. The new presence in the room –she assumed Malik- stopped short with only the barest whisper of cloth.

"Well you two have reached an agreement of _some_ kind," he spoke.

Sandy realized with a start that she had shifted in her sleep again, closer to her source of warmth, and it could not get any closer than lying with her head on Altair's chest. His right arm wrapped around her back, her left arm slung across his stomach, under his left, her whole front almost completely pressed to his side. The air was still chilly, but warmer than it had been the last time she was awake, it was brighter too. Dawn had broken and was quickly rousing the world.

"I was cold, Malik-" she replied.

"Oh?" she could hear the amusement in his voice, and it took a split second to realize how her admission was apparently taken. She tried to crane her neck up to look at him, but in her rush she rammed the top of her head into Altair's chin. The assassin jolted away, cursing near silently. Malik laughed, which caused Altair to curse louder.

"I'm sorry!" Sandy cried, jumping into a sitting position. She could feel heat flood into her face. What a time to display one of her rare moments of clumsiness.

Altair was rubbing his chin as he sat up, glaring squarely at Malik who had moved where they could see him clearly. However, the proprietor of the house was clearly too amused by what he had just witnessed to take Altair's glare seriously. Sandy shifted, grabbed her leather jacket, and deftly pulled it on.

"It really wasn't like what it looked like it was," she began, looking up at Malik from her sitting position.

"No foul done," Malik assured, moving back to the door "In waking him, it would seem you have done my task here for me and now I have work to attend to." With that he vanished back inside.

"No foul done, he said," Altair stated as he got to his feet and moved across the yard to retrieve his arsenal.

"I'm really sorry about the whole headbutt thing, really," Sandy said.

"It was an accident," Altair replied sharply.

Sandy was taken aback momentarily and crossed her arms over her chest. "Just as long as you know- I assume you're going to do someone in today, should-"

"Do someone in?" Altair asked.

"Ah damn, modern expression. I have been trying to avoid using those. It means kill someone." Sandy explained.

"Then yes, I am going to-" he paused, unsure of the usage, "do someone in."

"Good luck?" Sandy stated, unsure if she should be wishing good luck to someone who had just casually admitted he's going to murder someone soon. _What a sick, twisted world_ she thought to herself.

Altair vanished inside and returned shortly carrying a light breakfast of a few fruits, and then he was up on the roof and gone before she realized she had lapsed into her thoughts. Sandy looked about, wondering what she could do while she waited. She assumed he wouldn't be long, couple hours at most. She got up and stretched her tired limbs; sleeping so much on essentially a hard surface had left her stiff in places, so she proceeded to do some light stretches. Before long Sandy was absorbed in her relaxation routine and failed to notice Malik step into the yard.

"What are you doing now?" he asked.

Sandy straightened before she turned to face him. "Stretching. I'm not used to sleeping on stone floors. Not that I am complaining."

"I did not suggest you were," Malik replied. "You know where he went, right?"

"Altair? Yes, I know. I figure you got to do what you got to do to get by, right? I'm not bothered. I still wish I could pay him back for yesterday though."

"What do you need?" Malik wondered.

Sandy blinked, surprised, and was he really offering what she thought he was offering? "Oh, not much-" she mumbled, "I have my eye on a couple hay bales over where Altair met me. I figure if I set up a timer device-" she glanced back at Malik, wondering if he was still paying attention. "Well this will be improvised, but maybe two eggs, some sour wine if you have it, if not, vinegar will work too, finally two thin candle stubs-"

Malik's eyebrows rose at the list and Sandy instantly realized she'd have to explain.

"The egg shells are vessels. I intend to get rid of the egg inside, pour the sour wine in. It's flammable, actually more flammable than good wine. The candle stub is the timer. When the wax heats up, it will melt away and the wick will drop into the wine in the egg, igniting it. The force of the ignition would make the shells burst open, spreading the flaming wine on to anything around them. If I slip the lit eggs into a hay bale-"

"You do not need to be near the hay bale when it fully ignites," Malik finished, catching on to her ploy.

Sandy nodded, "In theory it should work. But it's an improvised device based on another improvised device, called a Molotov cocktail. I have never tested the egg version because I felt no need. I had the cocktail itself. With that one, a glass bottle full of-" she paused, thinking how to term gasoline, as refined petrol did not exist yet. "Naphtha-based liquid. A rag is stuffed into the bottle's neck, and lit. The bottle is then thrown."

"I'll see if I have any sour wine on hand-" he left the room, leaving Sandy standing there.

"Yosh!" Sandy cheered quietly to herself. She grabbed her messenger bag, opened it, and pulled out her tool kit which she had it on her at all times. She unrolled the black fake leather in which it was bound and laid it out on the carpet, checking that everything was in place. She had a small collection of fine-bladed scalpel-like knives, lock picks, and gloves for handling 'dangerous' materials. Next she produced her lighter, a metal-cased Zippo, a gift from Wolf, the leader of the Immortals.

Malik came back ten minutes later, carrying a small pottery jar in the crook of his arm along with a basket containing the other items. Sandy rose to her feet to take the items from him "Thank you so much!" she sounded giddy even to her own ears, but the prospect of doing what she did best made her feel like a kid with a dollar bill in a penny candy store. She plopped down right on the floor and got to work.

In the basket was a small bowl into which she drained the eggs after gently cutting the sharp end off them. She could feel Malik's gaze as he watched her work. Setting the shells aside she picked up the candle stubs, there was barely any wick or wax left, but she deftly molded the remaining wax into a cork-shape, and then used her finest lock pick to pierce a hole through it for the wick. She picked up one of the eggs and took measurement, needing to trim off a little of the wax to taper the bottom of the cork to fit snugly into the hole in the shell.

"Now the tricky part," she muttered, picking up the small jar of sour wine. When she uncovered it, her nose was assaulted by the strong vinegar scent coming from it, "Oh this is good stuff. The smell could wake the _dead_, all the alcohol in here probably turned to vinegar long ago," she muttered appreciatively as she poured the wine into the eggs over the bowl. As careful as she tried to be, she still spilled some on her hands. She did not fill them fully, leaving a quarter of air for the needed combustion to take place. With the candle corks stuffed in place she shook the makeshift Molotovs to coat the inside of the shells in vinegar. "I haven't got long; the acid in the vinegar will start to dissolve the shells soon. I best go."

"Try not to light half of Jerusalem on fire; there will be uproar large enough as it is once Altair does his usual job."

"Two hay bales, I promise," Sandy replied, as she quickly packed up her tools and stowed them in her bag "I'll leave it here; it prevents me from running at full tilt."

"Fine," Malik replied as he led her to the other entrance to the house, the one on the ground level. Sandy stowed the eggs gently in her jacket pockets, cradling them with her hands.

"Thank you so much," she added.

"Be careful, he won't come this time."

"I will be," with that said Sandy bolted, conserving her energy by just trotting along. She could feel the eggshells begin to soften ever so slightly, the acid of the vinegar fast working away at the calcium.

It took her some time to retrace her route unto the familiar street that led uphill to the Dome of the Rock; she spotted two hay bales there, standing side-by-side, all too convenient and nice. She waited for a moment, hidden in the shadow of alley mouth, watching for the guards and other people who might be aware of her presence. The street was packed despite the early hour and Sandy knew well that the throng of people could be both her cloak and her doom.

She made her way carefully to the bales, keeping her head low, blending into the crowd, _I should've asked Malik for something to cover up my clothing, note to self: do that next time, _she thought as she ducked behind the first hay bale and pulled out her eggs. Resting one on the ground she produced her Zippo and sparked it up. The wick of the candle was stubborn to catch fire, but it caught. She slipped the egg into the hay with the burning side sticking out, and then she crawl-limped on her knees and one hand over to the other bale.

The second candle was even more stubborn to catch fire and Sandy was all too aware that precious time was ticking. With each second the wax of the first candle was softening, the wick drop was imminent, if it worked. _Please work my little eggies, don't let mommy look like a fool, she doesn't think she can stop herself from attacking Altair if he makes a snide-ass joke about this _she prayed, and as if to answer her prayer the wick of the second candle finally caught and she stuck the egg into the hay.

She watched the wicks for a moment; the first one was already slipping inside the egg. Any second now the wax cork, thin as it was, would melt away and the wick would slip into the wine. She checked around the second hay bale and ducking low darted across the throng into an alley. Her sneakers made little sound as she trotted to the other end and emerged unto the minor street on the opposite side of the row of buildings.

There was a sudden shriek from some the way she came from and Sandy grinned. "Wax drop" she cooed. "Burn lovely hay, burn cheerfully and bright, burn stubborn, and don't let them put you out until you're all done. Let your plume of smoke be a signal." With her dastardly deed done she booked it, running in the alleys, walking calmly and nonchalantly in the open areas until she reached the familiar spot at which Altair and she had gone up unto the roofs the previous day. She climbed up unto the ladder only high enough so the top of her head cleared the eaves. She scanned for any men on the roofs in the vicinity. Seeing no one, archer or otherwise she clambered up and made for the plank bridge. There were people on the street underneath the bridge now and it made her pause. She knew it best she didn't cast a shadow unto the street below long enough to be noticed. She'd have to fleet across the rickety, swaying planks, like a bird fleeted through the sky.

She glanced back; behind her were the twin black plumes of rising smoke from the hay bales. The hay burned very dirtily, giving off lots of smoke, but not a lot of heat. It was ideal in this kind of situation where she needed more flash than substance. The odds of the buildings around the hay catching fire were reduced and the thick smoke would alert guards to a fire in town. Hence there would be less guards putting heat off her unwilling, and oblivious partner in crime. Or that's how she would've liked it to work.

Turning back to the task at hand she took a few steps back, aiming to take a running start at fleeting across the bridge. It was then the town bells began to peal, "Ah crap!" she lunged, running full tilt. The planks quivered and shook, but she managed to run across them without falling off, on the other side of the proverbial canyon she ran flat out for the latticework, and bravely jumped down.

This time her foot did not catch the fountain, but the impact of landing still jarred her whole frame and Sandy let her body fold into a crouch, absorbing the impact. The pain was still sharp enough that she had to crawl on all fours back to the carpet.

"Ah you're back," Malik re-appeared.

"Two plumes!" Sandy exclaimed.

"I noticed," Malik replied dryly.

The bells continued to toll, loud and urgent and Sandy began to worry. "Hopefully I didn't set off those," she murmured.

"They don't ring bells for a fire. That'd be Altair, as subtlety is lost on him." He offered her another wineskin, "That one was kept out of the sun."

"Oh thank you," Sandy took it, uncorked it, and drank hungrily. The water was indeed cooler, and it felt good passing through her parched throat. She lowered the wineskin to catch her oxygen after gulping down so much water without breathing, and it was a good thing she did. Altair literally dropped from the roof as if he had jumped in on the run. The landing caused him to almost roll with the jarring impact and Sandy still managed to jump.

"The usual then?" Malik asked.

Altair straightened and produced a blood-smeared feather, displaying it like a token of pride, or a medal.

"Welcome back," Sandy offered.

"Surprisingly a few guards today, seems like there was a fire in the souk nearby, fortunate for me," Altair noted.

Sandy tried to contain the giggle and settled on a giant beaming smile. Altair did not see it, since his back was turned to her.

Malik however saw it full well and shifted his weight, "Yes, _fortunate_ indeed."

Sandy got to her feet and took another long drag from the wineskin. As she lowered the skin she became keenly aware that Altair had caught wind of something that was concealed from him. The basilisk glare was back and flicking between her and Malik.

"Well I should think that luck had nothing to do with that, wouldn't you agree Malik? Proofs of concept, eggs full of vinegar with a candle timer do in fact combust well enough to light hay on fire. I would call that experiment a success, no?"

"You let her out?" Altair suddenly asked, focusing the full brunt of his glare at the other man in the room.

"And she came back quickly enough, with her self-imposed task completed and without raising the town's alarm or being chased by the whole city guard. I'm somewhat impressed," Malik replied.

"Yosh!" Sandy cheered. "There you have it Altair; there was nothing of luck in that fire. I told you I'll pay you back, and I did. Consider that a display of my skill and payment in part."

"You're never doing it again," Altair stated coldly. "Luck was on your side today, but next time, it may not be-"

"Next time I won't need luck. I'll remember to borrow some local dress. They won't notice little ol' me," Sandy glared back, matching his basilisk stare. She knew he would never openly thank her for the help, he did not seem to be the type to thank anyone for anything, but this was a little silly. He was treating her like an errant child who strayed from home and by sheer fluke returned to the proper path regardless. She was no such child, she was a grown woman of twenty-two, and by God she'd drill it into his head if she had to.

The unblinking glare contest continued for a long moment until quite suddenly that she became aware that Malik had left them alone. Sandy placed her hands on her hips and rose to her full height, even if he still easily dwarfed her with his almost unnatural for the period stature. "I'm not helpless you know, as contrary as it may seem, given other women of this time. I'm a twenty-first century woman, we pay men in spades!" He didn't reply, and she was sure he did not understand the full meaning of her modern expression, but let that be further punctuation to her point. She turned around and defiantly plopped down unto the carpet, dropping to lounge among the sea of pillows, putting her best royal airs around her.

He moved to the door and Sandy rolled unto her stomach, propping her chin on her hands, watching him. Just as he was approaching the doorjamb she smiled, "Fine, okay, I won't do it anymore. I won't make you _worry_ for me."

He faltered in his step and sent her a quick glare before vanishing inside. Sandy chuckled and rolled back unto her back, relaxing under the warm sunlight on the carpet, among the pillows. She could no longer see the plumes of smoke; the hay bales have gone out, with no severe damage done. _Damn, I'm good_, she thought to herself. She lay there on her back and crossed her legs, bouncing her foot idly as she threw her hands over her head and sighed in sheer contentment. There was nothing likes a small fire to make her feel absolutely on top of the world.

A scuff of feet on the stone alerted her to someone's return. She realized she knew who it was. Malik's robe had a different characteristic rustle than Altair's long tunic, and Altair's sword clinked faintly as it swayed against his hip. Otherwise, Altair was near silent, near, but not fully. There was no way to walk completely silently on stone floor, not even if her rubber sneakers. He'd need soft-soled shoed, something akin to Moccasins to fully mute his footsteps.

"You know, Altair, I'm beginning to tell you two apart by the mere sound of your feet and clothing moving."

"Hardly impressive," he replied blandly as he sat down across from her on his own makeshift bed, in his hands another wineskin and a chunk of bread.

Sandy smiled, "Sure it is, I've been here less than twenty four hours. That's something."

"I suppose you are proud of yourself."

"Sure I am, I'm the queen of the hour." She turned her head and smiled at him. "It's not often that I get to show off my skill to a fellow professional, someone who is just as skilled in his own field as I am in mine."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," he warned.

"It won't?" she asked, giving him a surprised look, quirking an eyebrow. "Well damn, I guess I won't be trying that again." She shrugged for show. She could see that faintly suppressed grin, just visible under the shadow of his hood. _Flattery not getting me anywhere, my aunty fanny!_ She thought.

"Are all _twenty-first century women_ as mouthy as you?"

"Not all, since there's only one _as you_, so to say, and you're looking at her."

Altair snorted, as if to laugh, but he did not. "I think I'm convinced now that you're not from this time."

"Well thank you."

"That or you are and you are insane." He added, as if to deflate her gratitude, even thought Sandy had spoken with ample sarcasm.

"Supposing I am, and I'm not, but just supposing. How will you explain my clothing, and _that thing_ I showed you?"

"That is the part that does not fit," Altair admitted.

"It was said in my time that when you take all the possibilities in any given situation and eliminate the ones that do not feel right, no matter how preposterous the remaining possibility is, invariably it will have to be the truth," Sandy offered, despite herself she felt her voice softening. She could feel a bit of a rapport forming, Altair was talking, which was odd, but probably a good sign. The previous night he had been brusque and distant, but now there was a genuine conversation going. "The human intuition has a sharper blade than any sword. I would think people in our separate professions would know a thing or two of intuition, or am I wrong?" She sat up, giving him a faint smile.

He glanced up, so she could see his piercing stare. Just by the eye contact she could read what he would not say, and that was good enough. She couldn't expect him to come out and say she was right, not in so many words. Compliments of any such kind would almost seem alien coming from this highly skilled, if obviously over-confident killer. _Arrogance and skill, coupled with good looks, no scratch that- damn good looks, there's a union to celebrate in hell_, she mused. She felt, more than heard her stomach grumble, proclaiming its hunger. Instantly embarrassed she got to her feet and winced, the hard landing made her ankle ache again.

"You tripped again?" he asked.

Sandy paused; clearly he had noticed her wince. "No, but- hell. I'm not used to jumping from heights and landing on my feet."

"You already to allow your body to fold. But you must not brace your muscles for that initial impact." Altair stated.

"Thank you, but I don't plan to do much more jumping," she smiled, and moved to the doorway. At the entrance she paused, Malik was there, poring over some papers spread over table, so engrossed in them that he was frowning. She watched him for all of a split second before she tiptoed to the kitchen.

"If you're hungry, you're welcome to help yourself," Malik spoke up.

Sandy looked back at him; he was still engrossed in his work, but clearly aware of her presence. _Well that was an exercise in futility, trying to pull stealth on an assassin_, she thought. "Thank you," she spoke aloud, and made her way to the kitchen. There she found some bread that was left out along with a basket of fruit and cheese. She glanced at her hands, knowing there was still dried wine there, among other things. She approached the washbasin and moistened her hands from the pitcher that stood close by, scrubbing her hands as best she could, taking a whiff every other time to check for traces of the sour wine's pungent funk. The plus was that vinegar was acidic and probably good as soap in the long run. Rinsing her hands off for the final time she shook them to cast excess water off before she turned to the food. Sandy took a fresh bun, a ripe peach, two apricots, and a piece of cheese. With her humble bounty in her arms she made her way back to the open yard.

When she stepped into the yard she was surprised to see Altair was still on the smaller pallet; she figured he'd take the chance to abduct his rightful bed while she was gone. On second look however, she noticed that he did steal two of the pillows, the biggest ones, and was now lounging on his back, still hooded but less armed. He was once again down to his hidden blade, the rest of his weapons and armored belt were in a neat pile, set aside next to him. She shrugged her shoulders and eased herself unto the carpet, kicking off her shoes.

She was munching on her bread and cheese when she felt the distinct sensation of being watched. Sandy tried to look up without raising her head. Their eyes locked and she looked up fully. "Something wrong?"

"I'm returning to Masyaf tomorrow, and I'm wondering what to do with you."

"I'm not baggage, Altair," Sandy stated blandly, taking another bite of her bread. She stared at him long and hard, wondering what could be cooking inside that mind of his.

"I may not be back in Jerusalem for a couple weeks, so it's best you stay with Malik. I'm sure you could do something to help him."

"What and miss seeing Masyaf?" Sandy asked.

"Don't you want to go back to your time?" He asked coldly, clearly still not willing to compromise in any way. However, Sandy was encouraged that she hadn't heard a flat out no yet. It was quite possibly a good sign.

"Yes and my best bet would be to stay here in Jerusalem, I admit. But I figure- maybe I could see the region a little bit first, I have time."

"I have _no_ time for sight-seeing tours. I need to present the token to my master, and in all likelihood I will receive another mission. It could send me to any number of places other than Jerusalem, like Damascus, or even Akka. If what you say is true, it would be most dangerous for you to go near Akka."

Sandy tilted her head to the side as she contemplated her next tactic. It was time for a little bit of underhanded play, he may have said that flattery would get her nowhere, but she could rightfully beg to differ. "Dangerous, yes, but I trust your skill." She beamed with the most cheerful and oblivious smile she could muster, only to conceal the conniving manipulation under its surface.

Altair did not reply for a long time, and Sandy began to fear that she had been wrong, that he was still seeking any other excuse to deny her since the obvious ones did not seem to be working. She took another drink from her fresh wineskin and nibbled on the cheese, leaving the fruit for last as dessert. It must've been five minutes before Altair actually shifted, sitting up on his carpet.

"If I were to take you to Masyaf- I usually make the trip in two days, but the added weight would add another day as I do not want to run Talimar ragged, and I assume you've never ridden a horse before."

"No, I haven't. But I pride myself on being a quick study." Sandy muttered around her cheese. He really did not need to know that she had never even so much as seen a live horse up close, but how hard could it be, right? She had ridden a motorcycle, so it must be a little bit like that, right? The prospect of three days in the saddle was as exciting as it was daunting. Exciting for the sights to be seen, Masyaf was worth the trip. Daunting for the idea of being that close to Altair, but she would manage. This kind of opportunity didn't present itself every day, it was best to jump on it. "I don't mind the ride, unless of course _you_ mind being that close to me. I don't bite Altair, really."

The joke fell flat, not even a faint twitch of his grin, not even a hint of that slight twitch. She could feel that basilisk stare again, as if probing and testing her resolve.

"Never mind about the bite joke, too modern," she muttered.

"Fine, you can come," he announced, slumping back into his reclined position.

"Thank you!" Sandy cheered.

He made an unarticulated sound, like a cross between a soft grunt and a snort, but did not speak another word. Minutes passed as she ate her fruit in peace, suddenly excited for the coming days, even if the time in the interim would be boring. She knew full that she couldn't leave the house, and since he had done someone in today, it was best if he lay low, which was exactly what he was doing.

"There will have to be rules," he finally stated, just when she began to consider the possibility that he might have fallen asleep.

"Like?" Sandy asked.

"Masyaf is not a place where sight seeing visitors are common; it's our home and training ground. You will have to respect that, and you will have to stick close to me at all times, or your odd hair might get you mistaken for a spy."

"I will be on my best behavior, and I'll be there like your shadow!" Sandy replied.

"Good. On the road itself, you will do as I say, so we can avoid as much trouble as possible."

"Saying it like that suggests you expect trouble regardless."

"There are bandits out on the roads these days, and the two of us would make a good target. They prefer to attack traveling women, as often they only travel for reasons such as marriage, and that means they are likely traveling with a dowry."

"I have a dowry for them alright. A good boot to the head."

That joke hit its mark; just a faint little tip told her that he was smiling in his way, but the hint of emotion vanished rapidly enough that under any other circumstance she would've thought she had been seeing things.

"Don't worry, you know this region, I'd have to be a complete idiot to ignore that fact. Any other rules?" Sandy asked.

"Those were the important parts." Altair replied.

"We're good then. How early do we depart tomorrow?" she asked.

"An hour after sunrise, before the heat becomes overbearing."

"Perfect," she stated and slumped unto her pillows, mirroring his position. "That only leaves one last question." She hesitated actually asking it since it was borderline tactless even to her sensibilities, but she felt that it had to be put into the open. "About last night-"

"Probably yes, temperatures outside the city drop even lower at night, and I will need to keep an eye on you."

"You knew I was going to ask, didn't you?"

Altair shrugged his shoulders, "Women linger on those things." He replied nonchalantly. "There is also the matter of serpents and scorpions. It would be best if we slept as close to the fire and each other."

"Makes sense," Sandy replied, and while she could see his logic, she couldn't help but be somewhat bothered by the prospect of spending that much time, that close to the assassin. Were she any shallower woman, she would've been grinning almost victoriously at the prospect of spending any amount of time around such a good looking man, but odds were that if she was indeed any shallower a woman she would've been dead by now, unable to defend herself from those two guards in that alley. "Well that's that then. Thanks again." She stated.

"Hopefully a repeat of this morning won't happen," he stated some time later.

Sandy was so caught off guard that she actually burst out laughing before she bothered to restrain it. She knew exactly what he meant by 'repeat of this morning', as Altair did not seem to be the type to be bothered by his allies seeing him in a potentially compromising position with a woman it could only be one thing. "I'm not _that_ clumsy normally." She stated calmly.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Naphtha: This is the ancient Greek name for petroleum (crude oil), which is how Sandy used it. However it should be noted that the term 'naphtha' does not translate identically across all languages. The Arabic equivalent is simply '_Naft_'.

"It was said-": This line Sandy quotes is not quite a direct quote, but a slightly 'tailored one'. Originating from Arthur Conan Doyle's _Sherlock Holmes_. The real quote goes "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, _however improbable_, must be the truth?" – Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four, ch. 6 (1890).

Bureau Layout: Slightly altered for 'realism'.

The Serpents & Scorpions: Saw this on a survival show. When trying to survive a place that has both, it's best to sleep next to a fire. Scorpions don't like its heat, period. Snakes rely on their ability to sense the body heat of prey at night to hunt, the fire interferes with that, and they will avoid areas that are 'too hot'.

**Director's Notes:**

I think I should explain that first scene. No, I'm not having Altair go sweet on Sandy, far too early for that. His true meaning here is in the way he sees it, and that is- he is doing her a great honor and giving her a great privilege, she'll be paying for it later. Oh yes. Please review.


	4. The Three Day Journey

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** The beginning of the 'first arc' so to say. This chapter was really hard to write on a couple levels. I post it with a little bit of trepidation.

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Chapter IV:**_ _The Three-Day Journey_

They departed an hour after sunrise, just as Altair had said. Malik had been curt in wishing them good luck, and though in theory he had wished them both, he had spoken while looking at Sandy. She did not miss that final jab aimed at Altair, and wished she knew what transpired there to make the two not get along like that, but it was simply out of the question to ask. It would be beyond shameless and tactless, it would be disrespectful.

She followed Altair to the northern gates of the city as they stuck to the open streets, having to wade through the throngs of early risers. In this time, the day began at sun-up, so even now there were people rushing to and fro. Altair carried along two heavy looking saddlebags and a sleeping roll. In his backward way he had made it obvious that going topside would've been faster, though he recognized her lack of skill. Sandy had apologized with ample sarcasm over the fact that she wasn't a ninja, and subsequently had to explain that one to him, and that took ten minutes, but he seemed interested.

Close to the north gates there was a large stable for the traveler's horses. She saw Altair give one of the stable hands some sort of wooden token which the man recognized and allowed the assassin into the stables. Sandy followed Altair soundlessly; trying not to gawp at all the various horses they passed by. There were solid colored horses, mottled horses, noticeably young horses with bored pawing hooves, and an old mare chewing on straw in the corner. Sandy wasn't learned in horses, but she could tell that none of them were of any single breed. That is until they came to the last stall, there stood a snow-white horse with the telltale head form that even a know-nothing like her could recognize as characteristic to a pure Arabian.

As Altair approached the horse neared the door of his box and stuck out his head fully. Altair placed his hand on the beast's neck and patted him. As Sandy approached, the horse's obsidian eyes instantly focused on her.

"That's Talimar?" she asked.

"Yes," Altair replied as he unlocked the gate and reached for the bridle hanging on the peg just inside the door. The horse accepted the metal bit between his teeth without a fuss, allowing the bridle to be put on. He snorted and twisted his ears and seemed to step foreword when Sandy neared.

"Aw, he's a darling!" Sandy reached, miming Altair's earlier gesture in patting the horse on the side of his neck. "You know, I was intimidated a little, but he's very gentle-seeming." The horse snorted as if at the idea of being gentle. Sandy laughed and patted him again.

"Come stand closer here, let Talimar sniff at you, that way he knows you're allowed around him," Altair motioned her to stand at his side.

Sandy obeyed without question and the horse nuzzled her stomach, taking audible puffs of air. He raised his head and took a whiff of her shoulder and then raised his head to his full height, towering over Sandy as he stared her down.

"Take a good hold of his reins and hold him," Altair gave her the leather straps and she followed his example, steadying Talimar. The assassin crossed into the box and retrieved the saddle blanket, which he slung across Talimar's back before he moved back to get the heavy-looking saddle. He hefted it up effortlessly and then placed it on the horse's back, checking the lines that would hold it on. Talimar stood obediently, letting his master tighten the saddle and check and re-check it. With that done, Altair attached the saddlebags and the roll, and took the reins from her. He led Talimar outside, watching the horse's stride for any flaw.

"He's a beautiful animal, I'll say it now," Sandy remarked.

"He's loyal, and fearless," Altair replied.

They walked with the horse outside the gates, and Sandy did not miss the odd looks she got from the guards. She tried to ignore the odd sense of foreboding that came on her from their lingering stares, and she tried to will herself to not look back.

Just off the path leading outside the city they stopped and Altair checked the saddlebags for the final time. "Alright now, to get on him, grab the horn, put your dominant foot in the same-side stirrup and push yourself up, then swing your other foot over," he instructed.

Sandy nodded, "For the record I'm ambidextrous, I do not have a dominant side." To illustrate her point she put her foot in the left stirrup, took hold of the saddle's horn, and pushed up. Talimar snorted, almost jarring Sandy with surprise, and it took her maybe five seconds to get her other leg over.

"Now remove your feet from the stirrups and sit as far foreword as you can." Altair instructed. Talimar snorted again as Sandy did just that.

"You know, I think he's laughing at me," she made the observation as she raised her own messenger bag up, so that it wouldn't slide around, she adjusted the shoulder strap tight to herself and tugged on it to make sure it would not slide off her shoulder. Altair got into the saddle from the right side and adjusted Sandy quite forcefully, making her blush. This was the part she had been dreading, being this close to him. He kept the reins in his left hand and nudged her.

"He probably is, he's not used to novices, now lean back on me, and keep hold of the horn. If you begin to slip, tell me immediately."

"Alright," Sandy replied.

Altair wrapped his right arm around her waist, further steadying her. Sandy looked down and hoped her couldn't see her ears go tomato red. She felt him tap the horse's sides with his heels and suddenly Talimar was moving. A slow trot at first, weaving around people heading to Jerusalem. Quickly all of Sandy's fear began to wane, this really wasn't all that different from a motorcycle she decided, except she was at the front, higher up off the ground, and there was a slight up jolt occasionally. They rode like that for ten to fifteen minutes, she lost track. She kept one of her hands on the horn, and with the other she held her bag as she leaned back against Altair's chest, keeping her head down to conceal the blush.

"Hold on, we're about to go faster." He warned.

"Okay," Sandy replied.

Talimar sped up, entering a graceful canter. The change in sensation surprised Sandy and the fear returned partially, this part was different from a motorcycle, which did not move up and down so much. Altair's arm around her waist tightened, as if he sensed her unease.

"Relax, your muscles will hurt more if you're so stiff in the saddle," He assured.

Sandy tried to obey, but hearing his voice right over her ear almost made her stiffen further, she had to coax each individual muscle in her body to relax before she could loosen up and recline back into him. She closed her eyes and just let the sensations of the horse's movement pass through her body, getting used to it.

"Didn't you want to see the surroundings?" Altair asked after some time.

Sandy's eyes flew open as her head jerked up and she saw the full view of the scenery rushing by. Combined with the sensation of the horse under her, she realized that being on horseback was nothing like riding a motorcycle. Riding a horse was more like flying.

"I was getting used to this, it is my first time you know," Sandy replied.

"I would've thought I'd have to help you more. You seem to know what to do, and yet you never rode, how?"

"In my time we have a form of entertainment called movies, captured moving images that tell stories, I'm not going too deep into the technological aspect, but let's just say I saw people getting on and off in the movies and things- so I did what I saw."

"That's good. What else did those _movies_ teach you?"

"Odds and ends," Sandy replied cryptically.

Altair just hummed, she felt the vibrations more than she heard the sound. His voice just above her ear stopped triggering a blush, it felt natural and Sandy felt more confident being on horseback. Her grip on the horn loosened a little, losing its desperate white-knuckled clutch.

The rest of the day's ride went by quickly and smoothly. They rode for maybe five hours, slowing down and speeding up as the rocky terrain allowed. The road wove, rose, dipped, and meandered, rarely ever going straight. Sandy was so engrossed in high-speed sightseeing that she stopped worrying about the assassin's proximity and his arm around her waist. It was around the middle to late of the afternoon, close to four, when Altair brought Talimar to a stop at a spot in the road where a small trampled trail led down into a tiny valley between two craggy hills. Here the hills were covered patches of wild grasses and there looked to be a well at the center of the little valley.

"We will rest here for the night, and let Talimar graze." He dismounted gracefully and led the horse by the reins down to the valley. Sandy shifted back in the saddle and slipped her feet into the stirrups.

"That was very much fun," she remarked.

"Don't say that until you get off the first time," Altair replied. "Did your movies teach you how to get off?"

"Sure," Sandy replied.

Altair stopped the horse and Sandy got ready, after two seconds contemplating she just did it, moving in the exact reversal of how she got on. Getting off was a little harder and she almost lost balance, but stumbling along she managed to not fall on her butt. It was then she felt it, the muscles in her thighs, high up on the inside suddenly screamed in pain.

Altair chuckled and Sandy knew that she had showed the pain on her face. "Told you," he muttered. "It's temporary; all novice riders get it the first couple times."

"I'm woman enough to handle it," Sandy replied, straightening. She walked over to a large rock and sat down on top of it.

"We're making good progress, a little more than one third of the way. I would've been past halfway, but this is progress enough. Same thing tomorrow, and a half day the next day."

"That's good," Sandy muttered. Other pains began to manifest, besides just in her thighs, her back was complaining too, but she kept her face straight. She watched as Altair began to gather dead shrubbery for a fire, and she pulled out her Zippo, might as well be useful somehow.

* * *

Hours passed and the sun had set, Altair sat on the ground with his back to a large rock, alternating between dozing and watching in the night. Sandy slept on the pallet next to the fire. The woman confused him in many ways. She was gentle and very feminine when she wanted to be, but other times she would display aggression that would intimidate lesser men. Were all women from her time like that? Or was she indeed as unique as she had said?

Whichever it was, he felt a grudging respect forming; she proved to be less a hassle and more a helper in her own meager way and he was beginning to enjoy their banter. She wasn't afraid to sling jabs at him, yet she was grateful to the point of being excessively polite. It was an odd combination of manners, but he could see it in her hazel eyes that they were sincere when grateful, and merely playful in the quips. Furthermore, her ability to play with her words showed intelligence and sass that was almost as exotic as her hair color.

She slept on her stomach, and he knew that despite her cheerful denials, she was in pain from riding. She could smile and tell him she was woman enough to take it, and she could conceal the pain on her face, but nothing could conceal the stiff way in which she moved. He knew where to look for the signs, he'd be a failure as an assassin if he wasn't observant, and she seemed to underestimate that. He'd let her have the illusion; after all, no harm done, even a woman deserved to keep her dignity.

Altair's contemplations of the woman were interrupted by a set of hooves on the path above the small valley. He looked up and focused into the darkness of the night beyond the halo of light given by the fire. It was much too late to try and smother the flames to conceal their presence. He watched as the three shadowy figures emerged from the gloom of the night, and seeing the glimmer of swords at their sides he knew they were not travelers. No one would travel this meandering terrain at night with no torchlight. He could now see them clearly; the lone rider was just walking his horse, allowing the two footmen to keep up.

He knew precisely when they noticed the glow from the dying flames. Leaning back unto the rock he relaxed into a sleeping charade, all the while keeping all his senses on high alert. If they attacked, he would dispatch them, and hopefully before Sandy woke. He didn't want her seeing three more murders. Thought the woman did not seem to openly protest or say anything about his deeds, he could see she did not approve fully. It did not matter to him what she thought, but it was a strange way to think. That idealistic naïveté and child-like innocence was rare and he found himself wishing to shelter it.

The two sets of footsteps belonging to the footmen began to draw near, but the hoof falls were still high on the path. He turned his head, as if still asleep to look at the rider, checking for ranged weapons. The man had dismounted, but was still warily looking to both sides of the road. That told Altair enough, the three decided to make an attack. Soon attacking him would be their worst and last mistake.

"He's armed," one of the footmen whispered to his partner.

"Then get rid of him first and go and get his horse, it's over there. I'll tie up the woman," the other replied.

Altair clenched his fist and readied himself for the attack. From under the rim of his hood he saw the first man approach while the other produced rope. The first pulled out a dagger and began to kneel. Just as the bandit shifted his knife to reverse grip Altair attacked, grabbing the man by the throat, and he wasted no time deploying his hidden blade and jamming it with full force into the man's stomach. Predictably the victim exclaimed on his final breath, Altair pushed him away and got to his feet. On his left he could hear the running footsteps of the third bandit, the second pulled out his sword.

"You chose the wrong travelers to bother," Altair stated as he drew his own from his side. It was only in the safe houses that he slept with his weapons piled, for comfort's sake. Traveling he slept ready just for this kind of occasion.

"Get him," the third bandit, the leader, commanded as he circled around the camp.

Altair did not show it, but he was alarmed, the third bandit went for Sandy, placing the second between him and the woman. To get to Sandy, he'd have to get rid of the fool blocking his way quickly.

The bandit swung and Altair dodged him effortlessly, already edging to get around him if at all possible. He kept one eye on the other man as he watched his opponent's movement, seeking an opening. The bandit lunged again, swinging his sword and Altair parried the hit. His opponent was clumsy; the kind of cowardly fool who could only attack an unwary sleeping foe, not someone who could _last_ long against him, much less hope to win. Altair seized his opportunity and swung his left fist, connecting with his target's chin. The man reeled and fell on one knee; Altair finished him quickly and efficiently by sticking his hidden blade under the bandit's collarbone and into the heart.

"You bastard!" the third bandit hissed, lunging, and drawing his own sword, losing interest in Sandy. In the glow of the dying flame Altair saw the woman's eyes open, the bandit had his back turned to her and missed the sign of danger. Altair knew that Sandy wasn't as unarmed as the bandits thought her to be, but would she attack given such a clear chance? Suddenly he decided that it was worth testing.

He backed up, allowing the bandit to think his amateur swings were actually making him retreat; he blocked the attacks with his sword and parried them aside. The bandit was expending the last of his energy for nothing; Altair could finish the fool any time he wished. Instead, he watched Sandy get up; her left hand noticeably fisted some of the sand off the ground. The woman didn't go for her knives but her footsteps in her odd shoes were silent on the dirt as she crept up on the bandit.

"When you said there are bandits on this road, I thought you were just scaring me," Sandy stated.

The bandit reeled, shocked and turned around. The woman was clearly counting on it; she swung her arm in a wide arc, throwing the sand straight into the bandit's face, causing him to howl as he was blinded.

"But you Mr. Bandit, you just had to piss me off!"

The bandit rubbed at his eyes, shaking his head, hoping to rid himself of the sand.

Sandy reached behind her back and withdrew one of her knives, the blade extended, and the bandit saw it much too late, a second later the knife found home in his gut. The woman recoiled, and pulled the blade out as quickly as she had shoved it in.

Altair could see that the kill was sloppy, a lot of blood gushed out from the bandit's wound, and Sandy leapt back, barely avoiding it splattering on her. She gave a startled cry as if she had not meant to do what she had, or perhaps had not meant to strike in that particular spot. She had aimed much too right, and much too high, just right of and under the breastbone. Predictably she hit the liver, and quite possibly the stomach. Both organs were rich in blood and gushed when pierced. It was a quick death, but a needlessly sloppy one.

The dying bandit tried to utter something as he collapsed, but Sandy turned away and folded her arms about herself, the knife still glimmering in the firelight as she crossed her left arm with her right, and held herself by the elbow.

"He's dead," Altair stated.

"I know," she replied weakly, and he saw her shoulders quiver ever so slightly.

* * *

Sandy could feel her frame begin shaking, so to hold herself together she gripped her elbow tighter. She didn't need Altair to confirm the death of the bandit, she knew what she had done, she had knowingly aimed for his liver; one strike, one kill, and she knew that even if she hadn't stabbed the brigand, Altair would've dispatched him eventually anyways. However knowing all that and knowing that she had just taken a life herself were two different things. The knife in her hand felt heavy and hot, so she just let go, letting it drop to the sand at her feet.

"You should have left him to me," Altair spoke.

"Maybe," Sandy replied. "I don't know why I did that, I just got angry, and-" she stopped, refusing to finish her thoughts. She had seen him retreat, and that had incensed her. The thought of Altair injured in however meager way had crossed her mind. He didn't look it, but he had been retreating, and she had reacted entirely on some sort of instinct.

She watched Altair now as he moved around her and bent down to retrieve her fallen weapon. She watched him as he pulled a rag from one of his belt's pouches, using it to wipe the blade free of bits of blood and sand. "Don't drop it again; the sand will ruin the mechanism." He chastised, offering the knife back. Sandy took it, inspected the housing for sand, and numbly folded the blade away before stowing it behind her back. Altair then extended his own wrist blade and wiped it down as well before he stuck the rag back into his pouch. "Why did you stab him?" he asked.

"I already told you, I don't know, it's just that…" she stopped again.

"You cut yourself short again," Altair remarked.

She turned around and watched him as he walked up the hill to the horse still standing there. The beast was seemingly stricken dumb, unable to move as it had watched the scene in the small valley. Altair took hold of the animal's reins and it did not protest as he led it down into the vale.

Close up Sandy could see it was an Arabian, like Talimar, who was watching them from some distance away, still lying down, utterly unbothered by the carnage, as if the horse had seen and heard it all before and no longer bothered to bother. Seeing the beast's reaction surprised Sandy, you would think the horse would be alarmed.

"She's a fine mare, these bandits stole her from someone," Altair remarked.

"What will we do with the bodies?" Sandy asked.

Altair turned to look at her, and in the dying firelight his eyes almost glowed in the shadow of his hood, more so than usually. They were less honey and more golden now, captivating and mesmerizing like the stare of a serpent just before a strike. "We leave them, and we move camp ahead."

"I see," Sandy remarked. She moved around and walked to the pallet, grabbing her bag. She could feel his gaze on her back and she did her preparations with swiftness and efficiency, rolling up the pallet and slinging her bag over her shoulder. Then noticing the fire for the first time she kneeled and began to scoop up sand to throw it on the flames to douse them.

"You don't need to act like your actions do not bother you. You killed a man in quite a gruesome way."

"I know, and it does not bother me as much as it should. It was in self-defense, and if I did not kill him you would've have killed him anyways. Does it matter whose hands are now stained with blood? There is something else that bothers me, and I cannot say what, because I do not know what it is precisely." She sounded a touch high-strung, even to her own ears, but forced the sudden urges to cry down.

"You're lying," Altair stated blandly.

Sandy looked up, daring him to demand proof, but instead he turned his head and whistled to Talimar, who only too eagerly got up and bounded to his master.

Sandy decided to take the vanguard, "I'm not lying!" she stated, causing Altair to turn back to her. "I'm confused! I have a reason to have done that, and then I don't. I know why I attacked, but I do not know why that one thing got to me enough to attack in the first place." She stated, looking up into his face, hoping to see signs that he understood her confusion and would leave it at that.

"You seek my help, and yet you refuse to tell me what I can help you with, make up your mind," Altair replied coolly.

Sandy's eyes narrowed into a glare, something that surprised Altair; she noted the change in his eyes. But in the faint glow of the moon high above, a glow no longer muted by the faint flames of their small campfire, she saw something else. Every weapon on his form glimmered in sharp contrast; every single weapon became plain to her. He was an assassin armed to the teeth; there was no way he would've retreated from one foolish thief when he had already dispatched two before. She realized in that instance exactly what had bothered her, fear. She had unduly feared for his life, and that fear turned to anger and gave her courage to attack. Her sudden realizations made the venom in her being freeze and fall away, how could she be angry with him at the moment? "You're right," she murmured. "I'll tell you. I attacked because I got angry, but the reason I got angry is because you were retreating- I saw you take two steps back and-"

"You took my feint for face value," Altair stated, cutting her off before she could admit to being afraid for him.

Sandy nodded; maybe she did not need to admit that she had been afraid, "I realized it just now. How could you be retreating from that fool when _I alone_ had enough skill to dispatch him? You were merely drawing him away from me. You're the trained assassin here, I'm just a pitiful girl, far from home, messing with danger she does not understand, playing with fire that for the first time in her life can and will burn her. You can say it, about time she realized that, better late than never." Altair stood still, watching her, the reins of the dark mare's bridle still in his hands, and Sandy began to worry that she had hit the nail on the head with that one. She had always been a good judge of people's emotions and moods, but this time she had spoken bitterly, partially hoping to hear the exact opposite, or anything else that would make her feel like less of a burden. If she couldn't even figure out his actions, how could she ever hope to be of some help?

It was a shock to her to realize that she did want to be help to him. He had saved her life thrice now, and no single act, no number of burned hay piles could fully repay that mounting debt. Only saving his life would be paying in part, but how could she? If ever a time came that he needed saving, she would probably be dead and he would be further weighed down with the knowledge of failure. His actions tonight had been plain to see, he had fought to keep the bandits away from her, protecting and thoughtful of her safety.

"Maybe I should take that horse and ride back to Jerusalem now," she muttered. "I may be able to get there by midday, and I'm sure Malik will believe me if I say we fought and I turned back."

"He'd believe you, I would not doubt it. He'd also blame me for letting a woman go alone into the night." Altair replied blandly.

"What should I do then?" Sandy asked.

Altair did not speak; he pulled the dark horse along towards her and placed the mare's reins into her hands. "You will take this horse, and keep going with me to Masyaf, and try not to fall off her just because she does not have a side saddle that befits women more."

Sandy was left gaping, frozen in surprise, that jerk was poking fun at her again. He took that opportunity to divest her of the roll, which he attached back on Talimar's saddle before mounting the beast.

"I'll have you know, Altair, I can ride like a man just as well!" she called, "I'm glad for the lack of side saddle!"

Altair grinned from atop Talimar, and suddenly Sandy understood that he had provoked her intentionally. The mare nudged her side and snorted, it caused Sandy to come back to her senses. For the first time she glanced to the new horse, it was dark, appearing pitch black in the low light. Its large beady dark eyes were watching her keenly. "Do you mind?" she asked the horse. The mare blinked, but made no sound, nor did she move. "I'll take that as a no," she moved to the horse's side and slipped her foot in the stirrup, pulling herself up into the saddle. Her muscles protested but she ignored the pain and she tried not to look at the three bodies strewn about.

"To make her turn, pull gently on one side of the reins and tap your heels into her sides," Altair stated.

Sandy followed his instructions, gently pulling on the left side of the bridle as she tapped the mare's flanks with her heels. The horse obeyed, turning back and moving at a slow pace towards Talimar.

"Good, to make her stop, pull evenly on both sides, no taps," Altair finished.

Sandy did just that for practice and marveled at how gracefully the mare obeyed. She didn't seem to have any problems with being ridden at all, especially by a novice. "I think I got it now, thank you."

"Good, let's go." He swung Talimar towards the path to the road and the horse began to ascend, Sandy commanded her own horse to follow. They went up to the path in single file until they were on the main road, and then Sandy could put her mare abreast with Talimar.

"She's going to need a name," she stated.

"That is up to you, she might as well be your horse now. I'll show you how to take care of her when we get to Masyaf."

"Are you sure?" Sandy asked.

"Do you see anyone protesting you taking her? And it will be better this way, Talimar will appreciate it too."

"You're right. Well- now I really better decide on a name if I am going to be keeping her." Sandy smiled as she reached down to pat the horse's neck.

"Decide on the go," Altair stated as he stirred Talimar into a trot.

Sandy followed, having to tap her mare's flanks twice because the first time had only stirred her up into a walk. She realized she'd have to get the feel for how much force to apply to get the mare to move at the right speed, especially if this horse was going to become her mount. Sandy smiled as she rode, she couldn't believe her luck, her own horse, and a beautiful one at that. Partially she began to wonder if the mare was as dark as she appeared, was she really black? Only sunlight would reveal the truth, in the meanwhile she was content enjoying riding on her own.

Ahead of her Altair urged his horse to speed up into a canter and Sandy followed, urging her horse to go faster still, until she caught up and could ride next to her companion. They rode for probably half an hour, looking for a new little vale to camp out, but nothing seemed to come.

Her mind was split, in between looking for a place to sleep, and trying to name her horse. Nothing came, even with her trying a number of themes and even languages, drawing up on every piece of knowledge she possessed. There was just nothing that would befit her. All she could come up with were names for horses that the mare was not. Like, for instance, if she had been a white stallion, naming it Shadowfax would've been simple. Sandy decided she couldn't give the mare a silly name like those borne by racing thoroughbreds, a name that was more about who sired the beast than the horse itself. Slowly her mind lapsed in the last reserve, the well of knowledge in Greek mythology. She did not want anything too obvious, nothing to do with pegasi, or any other even remotely horse-like creature. In her musings she did not notice that the mare slowed down, as if aware of her rider's distraction.

"Lapsing too far into thought on horseback is dangerous," Altair's voice cut through her stumped musings like a hot knife through butter. He circled around and seemed to contemplate the surroundings.

"You're right," Sandy smiled, and glanced up. "I was just having too hard a time deciding on a name."

"A name is a name," Altair replied.

Sandy laughed, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Rightly so." He glanced skeptically over and Sandy chucked again, "Sorry, quoting Shakespeare on you. He'll be a great poet one day, very famous. I think it's best I let this topic rest tonight, maybe when I've slept-" she paused and tilted her head to the side. "By Jove… that's it! Tonight- the night- I could call her Nyx!"

The mare shifted her weight and made two steps foreword on her own, closing the space between herself and Talimar. Altair turned his horse and kept going, "Keep up, and don't lapse into your thoughts again." He stated.

"Yes, yes, milord," Sandy muttered, giving Nyx a nudge with her heels.

They found a second little valley nearly ten miles north of the first and made camp. Sandy sat down on the sleeping roll and glanced up at the sky, "I wonder what time it is now, how long until dawn."

"Three hours at least, get more sleep." Altair commanded.

Sandy sighed and reclined on her roll, rolling unto her side. There was no fire this time, and the difference was noticeable, it was much cooler. She kept her jacket on and still rolled unto her stomach to contend with the back pain. After forty minutes in the saddle, looking for a second camp, her back was positively livid with agony. Lying on her stomach only seemed to exacerbate it and ten minutes later Sandy had to force herself to sit up, and when she did the pain only became worse.

"I don't think I can sleep," she announced, reaching for her bag.

"Pain?" He asked.

"Yea and it is getting worse." she sighed. "The fact that I'm off my natural sleep cycle is not helping it. I'm used to sleeping until midday and going to bed past midnight."

"More technology?" Altair asked.

"Artificial lights more bright than any torch or candle. They are so bright and numerous in the cities that even the stars themselves are muted out, the radiant halo is too strong for their faint light to pierce through."

He looked up, and she could see the skepticism in his expression.

"It's a shame really, the view is breathtaking," She added. "I'm a nocturnal person, really. I do my best thinking when the sun is gone, when the world is quiet, and in my time the world is anything but quiet by day. Around the bureau it was very quiet, it was nice. In my time, everywhere you go by day there is this ambience of sound. There are a lot more people, a lot more traffic. It's like this ever-present hum, but it's more like a heartbeat. I can't really explain it."

Sandy noticed that he was looking up at the stars, and she wondered that maybe she had babbled too much and he had stopped paying attention, she wouldn't blame him, but she enjoyed these bits of mostly one-sided conversation. As much as it was sudden and unexpected, she felt a touch of companionship with him; it was the sort of companionship two professionals in odd trades could seldom share, especially privy to the illegal activities of the other. There was trust there, or she hoped there was. She didn't really know where she stood with him and doubted she would ever know. He was a guarded individual, and she was sure that she would not see the unguarded nature during her stay here. She tried not to think about how long that might be, the thought was depressing.

Expecting no more conversation from Altair that night she laid down on her back and folded her hands behind her head so she could stare up at the stars. A faint breeze drifted between the hills and despite the pain the silence and darkness caused Sandy to drift back into dreamless sleep.

Altair woke her an hour after dawn, when the sun was above the hills and they could see the road ahead clearly. By the sun's light her suspicions had proven correct. Nyx was not black; she was a very dark brown color that showed only when the light hit her flanks just right. Covered in road dust as she was, she did appear black. Mentally Sandy promised the mare a wash and a brushing as soon as she learned how one went about washing and brushing a horse. In the meantime Sandy resigned herself to another hard ride, but faced the prospect with bravado. She had her own horse, and could shift comfortably in the saddle if one position got uncomfortable.

The day's ride was like the previous day, with two meal breaks of thirty minutes. The bit of an early start during the night before took them ahead of schedule. The weather was hot and sunny, but the rushing air during the ride made the long time more bearable.

They camped at the feet of the Lebanese mountains with Altair's announcement that they were three quarters of the way there. Knowing the terrain so well he effortlessly led them to a nook in the foothills with a small creek from which they could refill their wineskins and water the horses properly. The water wasn't good for anything else as it ran barely ankle-deep and at its widest point was only a foot across. Still Sandy managed to wash some of the road dust from her hair using her hands to cup the water and run it through her hair, she was glad for short hair, hers only reached her chin, and so she didn't need to bend down too hard to avoid wetting her clothing. That night with the wind almost whistling through the hills they had been forced to sleep close to each other again, and without a repeat of that morning in Jerusalem the subsequent day, though Sandy still ended up in a similar position in the morning.

The final day began like the previous two and continued much the same until they passed some sheep pastures where Sandy got to see her first through a hundredth actual living sheep. Each single one of them crossed the road on which they traveled at its own leisure, much to both of their annoyance. Sandy joked that some mutton for dinner would be just revenge, eliciting a lopsided grin from her companion.

It was late afternoon when they sighted the first signs of buildings on either side of the road. Most were just tiny cottages next to large farming fields. From that first sighting of civilization Altair led the small procession at a languid pace. Five minutes later, as they rode past a great stone arch he turned back and spared her a cross look, "You should become my shadow about here." The road beyond the arch was flanked by imposing cliffs that Sandy imagined were good for defense. Anyone unwelcome on this road could easily fall prey to archers among the rocks.

"Sentries?" Sandy asked.

"News of my return and your appearance will arrive before us," he added.

"Oh goody," Sandy murmured.

"Remember your promises."

"Oh I remember. I would be dumb to forget. Even if everyone else were only half as dangerous as you are, I still wouldn't wander far. I'd loathe getting lost." She glanced at him and he seemed satisfied with her words, so she pulled Nyx tighter behind Talimar and pretended to be his shadow.

The road here snaked its way among the cliffs, rising gradually. That soon gave way to a vista that astounded Sandy. Masyaf just emerged from around a final bend as if it was unveiling itself. The small town was built at the feet of a large rocky hill, with the citadel at its top. A river ran on one side, arching away to go around the cliffs. Sandy couldn't help but marvel at the sight of the grand castle, seemingly built right into the hill like a gray jewel upon a limestone-gray crown.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Talimar's name: The name was taken from the 'Ask Altair' web comic, a source of many chuckles for me. I am uncertain if that's the first origin of the name or not, so correct me if you know. If it is the origin point, it is used with credit.

Nyx: In Greek mythology, Nyx is the primordial goddess of the night. She is known for her power and beauty.

Horses: Generally speaking, ask any horse trainer, and they would balk at some of things Altair has Sandy do in this chapter. Namely hold Talimar while he saddled him, horses spook easily, and she's a complete novice. It was a very dangerous thing to do. Furthermore, even her crash course on riding is negligent.

Insults: 'Bastard' may seem like a mild cuss these days, but back during the medieval times it was deemed much, much worse. No one loved the connotation that they're illegitimate.

Shadowfax: This is an allusion to Gandalf's steed from Lord of the Rings.

Shakespeare Quote: To be precise, this quote comes from _Romeo and Juliet_, act 2 scene 2.

**Director's Notes:**

Well this was chapter four, in some ways it was very hard to write. I kept second-guessing myself on certain aspects, such as Sandy's shock-laden reaction upon killing that bandit. This chapter had a big example of how poorly Sandy tends to understand Altair's actions. It hadn't even crossed her mind that he was toying with that bandit.

In addition, a question was raised in a review whether this will go towards romance or not, the answer to that is, I honestly do not know. I will not say either way, because I will not be forcing their chemistry to go where it does not want to go 'naturally'. I do not do forced mush, or excessively flowered mush. Any romance happening here would probably be as subtle as the wit-play in the banter, just the type of characters that they are. Well please review with anything you have to say.


	5. Arrival at the Gates of Masyaf

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Well this is chapter five, getting into the first 'arc' of the story so to say. This chapter is longer because lots of stuff happens. Enjoy, and please review!

_**

* * *

Chapter V**__**:**_ _Arrival at the Gates of Masyaf_

One foot past Masyaf's gates Sandy decided that even if all the other assassins were cuddly puppies she'd still stick to Altair. The town was a labyrinth in all meanings of the word. It was probably designed to be that way, so invaders would find it difficult to navigate the town. Subsequently they would be forestalled in reaching the fortress, becoming easy prey to the assassin guards. There was one central road, flanked by high buildings, which could house atop them any number of archers.

They left the horses as the hands of the stable keepers; Nyx was to be taken among the other beasts belonging to the assassins, where she would get good care, a string or two pulled by her tour guide. Then Altair led the way up the slopes of town towards the imposing fortress.

As they drew ever closer, the population of the assassins all over became apparent. Everywhere she looked there they were, men in white clothing with red sashes around their waists. Some had more weapons than others, some looked more intimidating than others, but she would have had to be blind not to notice what an effect Altair had. The crowd seemed to part for him and conversations died as he passed. She became aware of following eyes on her being as well, but kept her own facing foreword, kept silent, and kept walking in Altair's shadow, as his shadow. As they passed the towering gates of the fortress into the front courtyard Altair got a few shouted greetings, but more and more eyes began to turn on her.

"Walk beside me," he commanded.

"Ah- yes, yes…" Sandy stuttered, catching up in a light trot.

"They intimidate you?" he asked in a lowered tone.

"Truthfully? Yes."

"Remember, you wanted to come here."

"I don't regret it, I'll get used to this, I'm not about to turn around and run."

He stopped in the fortress' main doorway and glanced back, "I will have to present you to the master as a guest; you will likely be asked questions, answer truthfully."

Sandy nodded, "I have nothing to lie about."

"And stop shrinking; no one will harm you here."

"Now you sound like my dad," Sandy replied, putting both of her hands on her hips. After a moment she straightened her frame, wincing at the bits of pain still lingering in her back. "After you," she stated. "I'm just a shadow after all."

He seemed satisfied when he turned around and began to walk; Sandy followed wordlessly, but kept her head high and back mostly straight. Just past the castle's doors was a large entry hall. The gray stones were bare save for the torches set in metal brackets, but there was a large rug on the floor. Sandy did not stop to gawp yet because Altair kept going to the large staircase. They climbed unto the next level and then took another staircase to the third. Sandy did brief gawping while she walked just a step behind Altair, and to his right.

No matter where they went, people stopped to watch them, and the few women Sandy saw -all of whom seemed to be servants and castle-hands- instantly had odd looks. Sandy knew those looks, they bore the seeds of rumors that would sprout and mature within an hour. She was probably something so unusual in the fortress, so different, that she'd be the topic of discussion for the evening in the kitchens and hallways.

Altair placed his hand on her shoulder at the foot of another set of stairs. "The master is in his study at the top of these stairs," he looked grave; no trace remained of any of the lightened mood brought on by her little jokes and the companionship of traveling for three days. She nodded her head in affirmation, unsure whether her tongue was of any use at the moment.

His hand left her shoulder and he began up the stairs. Sandy followed, clasping her hands, wringing her fingers together. On top of the landing, the study was a balcony-like structure overlooking the level below, and there were shelves of books about. A large window offered a view of the other side of the fortress, from her angle Sandy couldn't quite tell, but it seemed like there was a large garden there. In front of the window stood the figure of which she could assume to be Altair's master, he had his back turned to them, but Sandy could already feel unease mounting.

Sandy didn't let her eyes wander too far, not to seem rude or absent-minded, but mostly because her nerves were high-strung at the moment and her heart felt like it would explode from her chest any second now. A million incoherent thoughts ran through her head at a million miles an hour, scenarios and possibilities that she had a difficult time banishing.

"Master, I have returned," Altair began. His voice helped Sandy calm her mind and she stood by his side, half a step behind him.

"Excellent," the master replied at he turned away from the window. "The mission was a success?"

Wordlessly Altair produced the bloody token feather and laid it on the table in front of the man.

"As expected from you. Now, who is this you bring before me?"

"A guest of sorts, it is best she speak for herself." Altair replied.

"Well let us hear what you have to say, miss, but first a name," the master addressed her directly.

Sandy looked up for the first time, seeing the man in full form. He was older, probably in his sixties, but perhaps even older. Clad in the tunics of the assassins, with a black robe worn over it, hood up, and though he had a somewhat kindly expression, Sandy felt no more at ease. She couldn't keep the man's gaze without feeling like a bucket of cold water was dumped on her.

"I am Cassandra Lawrence, sir." She spoke.

"Why is it that you come here?" the man asked.

"Due to circumstances beyond my control Altair had saved my life in Jerusalem no less than twice. I have been traveling with him to repay my debt. Since then he has saved my life once more, so my debt has been only compounded."

"And how do you intend to pay this debt?"

"If I may, Master. The circumstances she speaks of are important to be noted. Cassandra, speak fully, do not conceal the truth," Altair warned.

"Very well," the master turned back to her, and suddenly Sandy felt more nervous than ever before. Her fingers twitched and she wringed them together until they almost hurt from the pressure. She would for a time ignore that it was the first time that Altair had uttered her name at all, making it sound so formal that another chill ran down her back. He managed to make her name sound like the beginning of a condemnation sentence. She almost took a step back, but forced herself to steel her nerves. Altair told her to stop shrinking, she would do her best to follow his order, shrinking now would do nothing to help.

"I am uncertain how it came about, but I am a traveler from a far away time. Slightly over eight hundred years in the future to be precise. If I may, I can offer a token of proof." Sandy looked up at that, pulling on every reserve of courage she had in her body.

The master nodded and Sandy reached into her pocket for her cell phone, she pressed its on button and stepped foreword to lay it across the desk next to Altair's bloody feather. "This device is a communication link in my time, it's nearly useless here because it cannot connect to other devices through the gap in time, but it is the best token of my sincerity." The cell phone seemed to punctuate her words by chiming, and bleeping in a familiar way that it couldn't find the network.

Sandy stepped back and allowed the master to pick up and inspect the device. He then looked back at her and Sandy felt compelled to explain. "The device shows the time and date it should be where I come from." She added.

"Anything else?" the master asked as he set the device back on the table.

"There is also knowledge. She knows of the details of the siege of Akka and predicts that the city will be captured within a month. For the time, Malik and I both decided to give her leeway until that month is up." Altair spoke up.

Sandy felt the chills down her back again, she was sure that she was a condemned criminal. Any second now all of this would blow up and she'd find herself against the whole assassin fortress. Altair being unable to do anything to help and she weren't even sure that if given the choice he would want to do something.

"Very well, we shall see within a month. In the meantime she is your responsibility Altair. You will watch her to make sure she is not a spy."

Altair nodded his head and glanced at Sandy, who tried not to collapse from relief. Things could have gone a lot worse she decided. The worst was over now, or at least she hoped it was.

"And therein remains my previous question, of this life debt."

"It is paid in near full now. Despite her words of my saving her life thrice, it was only once. She is capable of defending herself when in distress. However, she is too quick to count the number of times her life was saved. I merely interfered and expedited the inevitable twice," Altair announced.

Sandy tried not gawk, paid in near full? It was then she saw the flicker of a glance he spared her, so brief she might have thought she imagined it had it not been for the piercing look concealed under the hood. A singular commanding glare telling her not to speak up. Sandy swallowed her tongue. His basilisk stare apparently had two settings, and she had just seen 'vaporize'.

"Just as long as her payment does not interfere with your missions, Altair." The master warned. "You are free to go now. Come foreword, take your item," he glanced at Sandy.

"Thank you, sir." Sandy bowed, keeping her hands clasped before her. Straightening she approached the table and plucked her cell phone away, sticking it into her pocket.

"Come along, Cassandra." Altair commanded.

"Right behind you!" She turned and followed the assassin in a calm pace, not looking back. It wasn't until they were on the foot of the stairs again that she exhaled all the air she had been holding in her lungs in an audible sigh.

"You did an acceptable job," Altair voiced.

Sandy sighed again, 'well' was apparently too much too ask, but she smiled regardless. "I could barely speak, it was like something was constricting my air passages," she admitted.

"I noticed," he stated blandly.

"Thank you for backing me up back there. I was about to have a panic attack at least twice," she smiled and by getting around to his front, she bowed to him as she had bowed to his master. When she looked up she could see that lopsided grin again, and knew that the tense atmosphere currently between them would dissipate like the rain shortly.

"Never bow to anyone else but us, they do not deserve it," Altair stated.

Sandy chuckled, "Arrogant much, Altair? I know your master deserves it, but you? Maybe not."

Altair gave her a brief glare that was ruined by the faint smirk he tried to suppress. "Come along, we arrived before dinner, and there's no point in being inside until then. You wanted to see some places, no?" he led her back down the first level and out past the doors into the courtyard.

Sandy clasped her hands behind her back and allowed herself to gawp at will. Suddenly the looks from the other assassins around her did not seem to matter much. She was still wary of the possibility that the chaos effect could change things and the siege of Akka would not go the exact way she had read so long ago. She realized belatedly that the historical accounts could also be wrong in some minor detail, she'd have to prove herself trustworthy somehow else.

Cheering roused her from her ruminations, and Sandy spotted in the distance a group of men gathered around something. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Some novices sparring," Altair stated.

"Can we go see?" Sandy wondered.

"Go ahead."

Sandy approached the group of men, all of them dressed in whites and reds. She was quick to notice another detail, not all of them wore hoods. She didn't linger on the point and circled around until she found a gap through which she could approach the inside of the circle of men and see what was happening.

In the middle, surrounded in a low wooden fence was a sparring rink; the men were watching a pair of trainees fight. They were using real daggers as they circled each other, seeking an opening. One of the trainees had a nick on his arm, but he was still keen on fighting. What surprised Sandy was how young the boys appeared, and they could hardly be called men, because both looked to be no older than fifteen.

"Who are you?" a voice asked.

Sandy jumped and looked at the assassin standing next to her, "A guest-" she replied.

"Let her watch," Altair announced behind her.

Multiple heads whipped around as people became aware of him. Suddenly Sandy felt like a bug under the microscope as the wandering and questioning looks shifted from the elite assassin to her.

"Thank you," Sandy looked over her shoulder.

"Is she your trainee?" one of the other men wondered. Sandy watched the novices, but despite that, her ears picked up the mocking tone the other man used in addressing Altair.

"You know full well women are not allowed to train," Altair replied casually.

"Then why bring her here?" another man asked.

Altair did not reply and Sandy got the distinct feeling that he had about enough of that line of questioning.

At that moment one of the novices lunged at the other, knives flashed with speed and one went down. The attacker, aggressive as ever lunged again, not letting the other regain his footing. Their knives clashed as they struggled, free hands clasped. Sandy could see the opening but the downed novice could not. The attacker was bent over him and his stomach was fully exposed, well within the range of a kick to the solar plexus. The inevitable happened; the defender's arm tired and the attacker's blade pierced the ground two inches away from his face.

"You're dead," the winner declared.

"Excellent, Faisal." One of the older assassins encouraged.

"One more!" the other youth shouted.

"So what, you can lose again?" Faisal asked, "You can't beat me."

The two novices stared each other down, but the loser eventually gave up and exited the rink, trailed by another, more senior assassin. He looked bitter and the cut on his shoulder still bled, but the instructor patted him on the back regardless.

Sandy glanced back at Altair who was now standing right behind her as a silent guardian. With the spar over the crowd of spectators began to disperse, talking among themselves. Sandy scratched at the back of her head before she spoke. "That boy is aggressive and strong, but his attacks are too overt. I saw at least two mistakes that other boy made while defending."

"Oh?" Altair asked, amusement appearing on his face. "And those would be?"

"He had a chance to kick him off, but he didn't. Come to think of it, Faisal's attacks are predictable; his give-away is-"

She heard scuffing footsteps approaching and suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder, "Don't insult me, woman!" Faisal was suddenly face to face with her, with only the short fence between them. He looked angry and Sandy cringed. He was only a little shorter than her, only slightly larger in the frame, but the knowledge of his relative age did not let her be fully intimidated by this child.

"I was-"

"Know your place!" Faisal hissed.

"Hey! Just because I'm a woman does not automatically mean I'm inferior to you!" Sandy responded sharply.

"Her analysis is right and she could probably beat you," Altair stated.

The rookie looked up at Altair with a look that was a mix of shock and bubbling anger restrained with fear, fear of Altair.

"Don't I get a saying in this?" Sandy asked, looking up at the senior assassin. She felt that any second now she'd be dragged into a fight that she didn't want to fight, started only because of her own poor timing and escalated by Altair's lack of forethought.

"You already said enough!" Faisal hissed. "Now you will fight and lose, and I'll prove you both wrong!"

Sandy sighed and looked up at Altair, "This is all _your_ fault." She stated.

"I believe it was you who spoke first," he shot back, grinning again.

Sandy realized he was enjoying every second of the torture he was inflicting. He had done it entirely on purpose and for the sole benefit of his own designs and machinations. She turned back to Faisal and swung her bag over her shoulder, setting it down on the ground.

"One round, Faisal." She stated.

"Suits me fine," the rookie replied.

Sandy opened her jacket and took it off, draping it over one of the fence posts. As she stepped over the fence she tried to ignore the cold look from Faisal's mentor.

* * *

Altair watched the woman get ready; he noted the dubious looks Faisal had on his face. The rookie was cocky, but Altair knew that Sandy was right in her brief observation. The kid was too overt in his attacks and the other had forgotten that his weapons were not limited to his knife alone. Both boys were trainees and had mentors, neither had yet to score a first kill, something Sandy inadvertently had over them. It would be a learning experience to both the woman and Faisal, and might bring the rookie down a peg in terms of arrogance, which he was picking up right along with tactics from his mentor.

He also looked foreword to seeing what the woman could do in this kind of situations. She could spot openings watching from the outside, could she spot them on the fly and more importantly use them? It would help conclusively prove whether that bandit had been blind luck, or if the woman had actually had a mind for tactics and thinking on her feet. She had used sand on the bandit, which was an underhanded but highly effective tactic. Here there would be no sand throwing; she'd have to rely on her actual skill, if she indeed possessed any.

The two circled, drawing back the dispersing crowd with the sheer oddity of the sight. Altair knew Sandy preferred to counter, both times he saw her go at someone she never attacked first. Faisal on the other hand was suddenly unsure whether he should attack or not. The fact that Sandy was a woman was throwing the rookie off, something that he would have to overcome one day. Not every enemy was male.

"Come now, Faisal, what happened to that bravado?" Sandy asked.

"Indeed, stop holding back, novice," Altair added.

"Altair please, stop goading him on!" Sandy shot back.

Faisal, probably spurred into action by his jab more so than hers, used her momentarily distraction to lunge. But his attack was unguarded; he expected the woman to go down in one and went after her in the most overt way, knife raised for a one hit kill strike to the neck. The blade of the weapon glinted in the sunlight, alerting the woman. Altair saw her eyes jerk in the direction of the flash, and her body reacted almost instantaneously afterwards.

She dodged Faisal by sidestepping and twisting out of the way, turning a half circle, to keep facing him. Faisal turned around, a scowl on his face. Sandy's right hand went for her weapons, palming one of the knives. The look in her eyes was focused, and her steps were light and cat-like as they resumed circling, all the while she watched for any sign of attack. So far the minor mistake had been on Faisal's part, he let his weapon glint.

If his supposition of the woman's talent was right, the novice's odds were dropping with every passing moment as she watched him and his movements. Altair had nothing against Faisal, but he wanted Sandy to win simply to see the look on Jamal's face. Faisal's mentor was someone who Altair did have a problem with, an upstart that was ascending through the ranks alarmingly fast, all the while proclaiming himself better than him. He was not going to tolerate any upstarts openly challenging him and yet avoiding sparring matches, citing missions and other interferences.

Faisal lunged again, but this time his attack was matched by Sandy's, she got under his guard, batting his knife hand away with her forearm, and what happened next surprised even Altair. In a single movement her foot swept low, hooking Faisal's ankle, pulling it free from under him, while her palm smacked into his chest, sending him to the ground unto his back. His knife dropped to the ground, and Sandy nimbly jumped over his body, sending the weapon skidding out of the rink with one kick where it was picked up by one of the spectators.

"Dropped something, Faisal?" the man jeered as he waved the weapon, causing laughter to erupt in the ranks of the watching assassins.

With an outraged cry Faisal regained his footing, reaching for the woman, but he failed to grip unto the thin material of her clothing and she ripped free, whirling to face him again.

"Should've gone after him, and not the knife missy," one of the other assassins in the crowd offered, clearly impressed.

"Not my style." The woman replied. "I was taught to disarm first and then take my foe down, and preferably without using lethal force. With all due respect to everyone here, I'm _not_ a trained assassin, I only defend myself and those I hold dear."

Faisal lunged again, lapsing into hand-to-hand combat, Sandy dodged him again and tried to hook his ankle again, but to his credit Faisal saw it coming and avoided falling for the same trap twice.

"That won't work on me again," the rookie stated, as he swung at her again, aiming his punch better this time, but she still managed to duck out of the way in the nick of time.

"I'll remember that, _kid_, if I ever _mean_ that to work," Sandy bit back. Her left hand shot out, grabbing the rookie's extended right arm by the wrist. Moving around him fluently, she pulled his arm behind his back, twisting his wrist so hard everyone saw Faisal wince. Her other hand flashed, and suddenly her clasped fist was next to the rookie's throat, but among the crowd only Altair knew that she was holding a knife. "Same goes for your right hook, you're a righty, you favor that side, and it's blatant. Now how about you give in."

Faisal kicked blindly at her legs, but missed due to the fact that Sandy expected it and kept her feet apart. His reward came with the familiar _kra-ching_ asthe blade of Sandy's knife extended, stopping a scant millimeter short of cutting open Faisal's neck. She pressed the blade right under his chin, causing him to crane his neck as he tried to avoid being cut.

"Had you forced my hand, you'd be dead." Sandy stated.

"That's enough," Faisal's mentor commanded angrily as he entered the rink. Sandy let Faisal go without hesitation. A split of a second later Jamal grabbed her knife hand by the wrist before she could conceal the blade. Sandy flashed Altair an alarmed look.

"Let her go, Jamal." Altair commanded as he too stepped into the rink, approaching the other high-ranking assassin.

"There is blood on her knife!" Jamal stated, looking at Altair.

"She probably cut herself at one point," Faisal grumbled bitterly, rubbing at his wrist.

"Actually-"

Altair placed his right hand on Sandy's shoulder, stopping her words, and let a note of pride enter his tone of voice as he addressed Jamal, "She killed a bandit two nights ago while defending herself, and I was there to witness it. The blade has not been cleaned thoroughly since."

"Altair you know full well that women are not allowed training!" Jamal argued, outraged.

"I am not training her, nor will I ever do so. You heard her; someone else has trained her, and he has done a sufficient job at it, enough that she can beat your trainee so _easily_." Altair stated coldly.

"Ow, kindly let go of my wrist!" Sandy protested.

Jamal stepped away from the woman as if burned, letting her arm drop. Altair pretended he did not see the clear red handprint on the woman's wrist. Jamal went out of line rough-handling her, but Altair could do nothing to the arrogant fool without it looking like he was too eager to defend the woman. The idea that he was too eager to defend the woman was the last thing he wanted everyone to think. It was enough that he had just gotten to Jamal, the arrogant man would not live down this humiliation for a while. Sandy's wrist would heal in time.

* * *

Sandy glanced between the two assassins as they continued their silent match of glare-chicken. Somehow it felt wrong to be causing this sort of scuffle between two allies, but she knew that if she spoke up now she could do no good. Instead she moved to the fence, folding her knife and stowing it behind her back before she retrieved her jacket and bag.

"She is leaving," she heard Faisal announce blandly.

"Yes, I'm leaving!" she called back over her shoulder. "Now please leave me be, and forget this had ever happened." Sparing one annoyed glare at Altair, she stalked off. However she didn't get far, one of the other men in the crowd stopped her before she could reach the gates of the fort and the road beyond.

"Is that a way to celebrate a fair victory?" the man asked, looking down at her with a pair of kindly dark eyes.

"I did not want to fight! Altair made me!"

The assassin leaned down so they were closer to eye level. "Despite that you still won fairly. I think it should be an honor to you; Altair had never taken on a charge, few can keep up with him, but you- Yes… if he felt confident enough to volunteer you into the rink then he must have seen some potential."

"But- I don't- I'm a girl." Sandy stumbled around.

"You're letting those two bother you," Altair's voice rang behind her back. He did not sound pleased and Sandy couldn't decide if it was because of her actions or the words of this other assassin who's name she did not know.

"He's right there, you shouldn't let them bother you," The fatherly man holding her by the shoulders stated. He was different from some of the others, older; his accent was also not local, but like most men here he had dark, tanned skin and eyes. He also wore a coat similar to one she had seen Malik wear.

Sandy sighed and shook her head. "I knew I should have stayed in Jerusalem," she muttered.

The older assassin chuckled and surprisingly ruffled her hair in a distinctly paternal gesture. Sandy looked up at him, but only saw his back as he walked away, leaving her once again remotely alone with Altair.

"Thank you for helping me make a fool of myself," Sandy spoke as she turned to face him.

"I did nothing," he replied.

"I'm not going to argue guilt with you. Why did you just throw me in there like that?"

"Was I wrong to assume you couldn't protect yourself from someone as weak as Faisal?" he asked.

Sandy put her hands on her hips and tried not to raise her voice, after all they were still in the courtyard of the fort with any number of eyes watching the spectacle. "I can defend myself just fine, but it does not mean I like to make a _sport_ out of it."

Altair's expression remained perfectly poker-faced, with no hint of remorse for his actions and Sandy realized that hell would freeze over sooner than she'd get anything close to an apology from him for anything. He probably did not see what he caused as something bad. "Is dinner soon?" she asked.

"Another hour," he replied.

Sandy sighed; she wasn't about to complain that she was hungry now, so she resigned herself to waiting. Really what was an hour? She pulled out her cell phone and glanced at its screen to note the time.

Altair's hand shot out and covered the device, "put it away, don't show that thing to anyone else," He commanded.

"It's doing it again," she murmured, moving his hand away.

"Doing what?" Altair asked, as he moved to block her out of sight with his large frame.

"The little icon up here at the top, it's flashing as if the thing is getting its energy from something. But it can't be recharging, in my time it has to be plugged into a larger energy source, it can't just get it from the air."

"Debate on it later, put it away for now," Altair repeated.

Sandy sighed but admitted that he was right; she stuck the cell phone back in her pocket. Altair seemed pleased and placed a hand on her shoulder, gently nudging to fall in step beside him as he set for the doors. She shrugged his hand off but stuck close. "Can I ask a somewhat… obvious question?" she wondered.

"What is it?"

"Where am I going to sleep tonight?" she looked up at him, meeting his gaze from underneath the edge of his hood.

"The master ordered me to keep an eye on you, so you will be sleeping in my quarters within the fort."

"And where-" Sandy noticed the look and suddenly she realized the question was redundant. "Right, keeping an eye on me- yea," she frowned. Sleeping in the same space, and often within inches of each other was quickly becoming an all-too-awkward and almost disturbing running pattern. He wasn't difficult to deal with; in fact he slept still as a rock, if only as _still_ as one. He was a very light sleeper, which was given for someone in his profession. The two times they shared body heat she discovered that he was also somewhat of a protective sleeper. His arm would invariably end up around her waist during the night. The thought alone made her face warm and if she said that she minded it she'd be a flagrant liar.

"After dinner I'll take you to the bath house, we both need it."

Sandy stopped cold, "_together?_" she asked, shocked.

Altair had stopped a pace ahead, and looked back; his face remained very nearly impassive, but she could see just the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth, he was doing his absolute best to bury a grin. What was so amusing? Sandy wondered as her face blazed with heat.

"It is sequestered," he noted after ten seconds.

"Oh- Oh! Oh geez… Sorry." Sandy truly flushed at the realization that she had merely taken his poorly stated sentence as something that it was not. Altair's amusement never left, the grin was on his face probably for half an hour after that, even as he decided to show her the route to his quarters before dinner.

Sandy very much doubted that she'd ever have to navigate it alone, but remembered the turns along the way. The castle extended into the cliff and had quite a dungeon below as he explained. His quarters were on the second level, a comfortable, if sparse, square room with a single window and a single bed that was somewhat larger than Sandy would have expected, but given his size and height it did not surprise her.

Before they left for the dinner hall he left most of his weapons in his quarters, keeping only his wrist blade, and she decided to follow suit in leaving her messenger bag, but keeping her knives on.

She still felt plenty awkward about the mistake she had made. _Freud would have a field day with that one_, she thought as she walked behind Altair, not daring to speak to him out of an irrational fear of the slip happening again. It was easily the most embarrassing thing she had ever mistook, and though it was his fault for being so darn inarticulate, she still felt the full brunt of the awkwardness.

At the first level Altair led her to the left of the entry hall, past a set of double doors. Sandy paused at the entrance to the dinner hall, also the great hall of the citadel. A high vaulted ceiling made its full size seemingly larger with surprisingly slender columns supporting it. The walls were mostly bare gray stone, with only a few red and white insignia banners for decorations; the large windows lining one whole wall supplied most of the light. There were five long, heavy wooden tables, four running almost the entire length of the hall and one spanning it across at the head. There were two entrances, one near the head table, and one at the feet of the four of the others. The crowd of assassins waiting for their dinner was already gathering, and the hall was half full already. The din of conversation was like the simultaneous drone of a thousand bees.

Sandy glanced at Altair and saw that he was watching her, she smiled softly and he took it as a sign to lead her to his seat. Sandy followed him wordlessly to the head table where he sat two seats to the right of the ornate heavy chair undoubtedly reserved for the master.

"Sit here," Altair commanded, motioning to the empty seat on his right.

Sandy obediently sat down and crossed her hands in her lap. The table was partially set already; there were empty plates, knives, spoons, terracotta cups, and cloth napkins provided for each place. It wasn't long until Sandy began to notice the odd looks she was receiving from the men in the room. Whenever she caught someone's gaze she smiled in a friendly way, but couldn't help but become slightly intimidated. It was odd to be sitting in such a formal place, overlooking everyone like some lady of the keep at some medieval faire. Her roving efforts to return smiles for the looks had her begin to notice the differences in the people sitting at the different tables.

The table closest to the doors, where the sun almost did not reach, sat who she could assume to be trainees; their tunics were gray, short tailed, and lacked hoods or red sashes, instead they had simple leather belts cinching their tunics to their waists.

The middle two tables sat those she assumed to be regulars, assassins in their white short-tailed tunics with red sashes, but only those at the table closer to the window hoods in simple gray.

The table closest to the windows sat assassins who had white hoods; some had theirs up so she noticed the lack of decorative point at the edge, and only some of them had the long double tails on the hems of their tunics. They also seemed to be older than those seated at the other three tables.

Finally she glanced down the length of the head table at which she sat. The few assassins seated at it all had points on their hoods and most kept them up. They also had double tails, and embroidery on the shoulder hems of their top, sleeveless tunic. It was also obvious that of them all Altair was probably the youngest. He was likely in his twenties, when all the other elites looked to be in their thirties at least.

Her lingering look was noticed by the man three seats across from the master's seat, a Spaniard by his features. He winked under the fringe of this hood, and Sandy hastily looked away.

"Altair are you sure I should be sitting here?" she asked, knowing how edgy she sounded.

Altair glanced at her but his expression gave nothing away, the grin over the embarrassing incident earlier had disappeared, "This table is for the important guests as well," he stated.

"Important-"

"I was told to keep and eye on you, I can do that better from here. Or would you prefer to sit with the likes of Faisal or Jamal?" he asked.

Sandy shook her head, and slid deeper into her seat. "I'm letting them bother me again, aren't I?" she asked.

Altair didn't reply, but she took the silence as a yes, so she took a deep breath and tried to force herself to relax. Somehow she had the feeling that it would be a long time before she got used to this kind of thing.

It was then that the two sets of double doors at the feet of the room opened, and long lines of servant maids appeared with trays laden with goblets that they began to hand out. A group of five of them made a straight beeline for their table, and when one approached Altair and lowered her tray, he took two goblets and turned back to set one down for himself and the other for her. Sandy saw the maid pout faintly, but her expression straightened almost as quickly and she moved on.

Sandy took her goblet and took a testing sip; the drink was pleasantly cool, but not cold and delightfully alcohol-free. A sweet, fruity concoction of some kind, she could not recognize the individual flavors, the brew master had blended a number of fruits so perfectly.

"Jamal is watching you," Altair stated.

Sandy glanced up and followed his gaze to the table closest to the window, and there was the crass man in all his glory. Her wrist still panged with pain whenever she turned it from when he had grabbed it to inspect her knife earlier. His grip had been nothing short of crocodilian, lacking any trace of gentleness or consideration. In comparison Altair's grip on her wrists in that alley in Jerusalem, which had seemed harsh at the time, now seemed only as firm as he felt needed.

She had not gotten a good look at Jamal before, but now she realized she really did not miss much. He had a pair of piercing gray eyes that shone with a cold steel light. His features were sharp, with no hint of gentleness; his nose was bent, probably after being broken at least once and set back improperly. He had an unpleasant scowl that unnerved her to the point that she quickly looked away and turned back to Altair.

"I don't like that look of his, not one bit," Sandy whispered.

"You're best avoiding him and Faisal," Altair replied.

"Oh don't worry, I _plan_ to."

Altair drained his first goblet and turned at the servant maids standing by with refill jugs. Sandy noticed that one glance was enough a signal for them, the closest instantly sprang foreword with her jug aloft, a jaunt in her steps, and a brilliant if shy smile on her own face. Altair merely held out his empty goblet for her to refill but otherwise paid her no attention. The girl's smile fell when she got nothing from the assassin for her services. Sandy almost pitied her, the crush was so obvious and so apparently hopeless that even the servant girl knew it, and yet she kept trying regardless.

The double doors opened yet again, and the servants reappeared, this time carrying food in large pots from which they began to serve. Once again a small group bypassed the main tables and made their way to the head table. They served rice and cooked vegetables in such quantities that Sandy found herself looking at more than she could hope to eat in a single sitting. She stared at the plate for a long moment before she picked up her spoon and began to eat. It would be a good break from the road rations of bread, cheese, fruit, and water. As soon as the first bite was down, she was eating with gusto.

Within five minutes everyone was eating around her, the looks vanished, the men turned to their own conversations. Sandy began to genuinely relax with the drop in the prickly feeling of being watched. She glanced to her odd companion and watched him for a long moment over the top of her goblet. He had already made half the rice disappear, and the maids had showed favoritism by giving him extra to begin with.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Oh nothing. I'm just- well I want to thank you for bringing me here, despite everything."

He turned his head to look at her and, an odd glint in his eyes as if her words had somehow amused him again. Sandy inclined her head to him, her eyes never leaving his. His grin appeared again and for a moment it almost looked like a genuine smile. Suddenly Sandy understood how all the maids seemed eager to serve and please him, seeking his attention in their miniscule ways. Her own heart skipped a beat at the sight of that dazzling almost-smile. She tore her gaze away almost forcefully, but was satisfied and put at ease enough to return to her food, which she ate without worrying about what was to come.

The rest of dinner went in the same way; they did not talk, probably due to the presence of so many others, and Sandy felt that there was nothing to say anyways. The meal was entirely enjoyable with silent companionship alone. The second course caused Sandy to laugh softly, it was mutton done in a way similar to steak, with yet more vegetables, for which strong hot black tea was served. It was poured into the pre-set terracotta cups from large metal kettles that the maids carried aloft. Invariably it brought back her earlier joke about revenge on sheep. The reminder had elicited a faint lopsided grin from Altair while she tried not to giggle like a silly schoolgirl.

As the sunlight genuinely began to fail, turning day into evening, the torches and candles were lit, bathing the hall in a soft sort of flickering glow that made the cold stones around them feel so much warmer. Eventually though, all good things come to an end. They left the hall together and Sandy in high spirits, all the nervousness forgotten with the filled belly.

Altair led her up to his quarters again where Sandy was faced with the realization that she had no clean clothing to change into after her bath. The problem was solved when Altair pushed a gray bundle into her hands, and told her to make do. She left her leather jacket and weapons in his quarters before he led her to the bathhouses on the first underground level of the fortress and told her not to rush.

Sandy stepped past a set of very heavy doors and found herself in a dressing room of sorts, there were two other women there and she suddenly felt self-conscious. One of the women was the servant maid she had seen before, the one who was so disappointed at Altair's lack of response after she had so enthusiastically refilled his goblet the first time, and the three times afterwards. The dressing room was dark, the few torches here were weak, the wood they were made of was simply too humid. The stone walls were darkened with the humidity as well. There was another set of heavy wooden doors leading into what was probably the bathhouse proper and the air in the dressing room was already warmer than in the hallways outside.

Soon she found herself conversing with the girl -Fatima was her name- and she proved to be most helpful in guiding Sandy through her first experience with a genuine Middle Eastern bathhouse. It was quite different from what her initial thoughts of a bathhouse were; she hadn't even known this kind of thing existed. There were three chambers past the dressing room, each getting progressively hotter and more humid than the previous. The middle chamber also had a large pool, though only waist deep with stone seating boxes immersed in it. There was water, hot and cold, piped into basins in the other two chambers. The heat quickly began to ease all of the pain in her riding-sore muscles, and Sandy took her time washing as she talked with Fatima.

The girl was barely eighteen, an orphan taken in by the assassins to work in the kitchens, and that was a lot better a life than she would've gotten anywhere else, having nothing to her name. She got a roof over her head, clothing, and enough food on her table daily to lead a comfortable life, all for working as essentially a waitress. There was also the possibility that one day she would catch the eye of one of the assassins and net herself a husband of some status if nowhere else than in Masyaf.

Fatima had expressed how lucky Sandy was to get to talk to Altair, and from that Sandy gleamed that the girl did indeed hold the cutest crush on the oblivious man. She didn't tell Fatima that she had gotten to do more than just _talk_ with the assassin; she didn't want Fatima to dislike her. They had talked for an hour, basking in the pool of the middle chamber for most of the time. Fatima answered all of Sandy's questions as best she could, but some things the girl simply did not know.

Once finished and out of the baths, Sandy checked the clothing she had gotten from her stalwart guardian. Predictably it was men's clothing that consisted of a oversized gray tunic, too wide at the shoulders and too long in the sleeves. The matching pants proved too long and had to be rolled up and tied snugly around her waist, but overall the clothing was comfortable. She tried not to linger on their less than mysterious origins. In the waiting room where there was a drain in the corner, Sandy decided to use some of the hot water to wash the dust from her clothing. She took care in wringing her jeans out so they would not drip; the tee shirt and socks were a lot easier to deal with, she figured she could lay them out on the windowsill in Altair's quarters to dry. She would have to ask the girls how they did laundry, and if she could tag along one day.

Fatima left first, saying that she still had to do a few things left to do before her day was entirely over, so Sandy was left alone and took her time caring for all her clothing. When she finally left the baths she was surprised to see Altair standing right in front of the doors, leaning his back on the wall. What surprised her even more is his attire; the white tunics and the cowl were gone, instead he wore a beautiful indigo tunic of what she suspected was silk, with matching loose pants, and for the first time ever she saw him utterly unarmed, utterly at ease, clean-shaven, with his short hair still damp from his own bath. Fact was that he looked ravishing, and denying it was utterly pointless.

"Thank you for this," Sandy spoke as soon as she fell in step next to him, her wet clothing bundled in her arms. "I think I made a friend too, maybe you saw her leave, Fatima is very nice."

Altair did not speak as they walked and Sandy decided that she wouldn't either. They walked back to his quarters with the same silence lingering, but Sandy kept an eye out for Fatima. She really did not want her new friend to find out about something that for the first time made Sandy feel guilty. The poor girl would not take the thought of her staying that close to Altair at all times in a positive light. There was really only one light it could be taken in, since only a few people knowing the truth. That light would be a dark light upon all the parties involved.

Once the door to his quarters closed behind him, Altair seemingly relaxed. Sandy moved to the window and unbundled her clothing. It was then she noticed the view, and decided that no, hanging her clothing to dry on the sill would be a bad idea. Altair's room overlooked the courtyard of the castle. Were anyone to look up, they wouldn't miss the tailored jeans and the red shirt and the secret of her lodgings would be exposed.

"You can drape those on the footboard," Altair stated.

"Thank you," Sandy flashed him a smile and did as told. Sometimes she marveled at how he was seemingly able to read her mind, just when she had asked herself where else she could put the clothing in the room, he had supplied the answer.

"When you're done with that, come here. Jamal was right, your blade is stained with blood. I'll show you how to best clean it." Altair moved across the room and picked up his arm brace before he moved to the small table in the corner strewn with supplies.

Sandy came to his side with her stilettos and the rest of the evening was spent in an amicable atmosphere of a master imparting the nuggets of his trade unto a pupil. Sandy had to explain how the mechanism of her knives worked and let him inspect them in detail before he decided on the best method to get as much of the dried blood from the housing as possible. She paid riveted attention to how he cleaned the weapon as he had said he'd only show her the procedure once. In the end the blade was gleaming again and the faint odor of blood that had hung about it was gone. It looked like it had never entered human flesh. Afterwards he had thoroughly cleaned his own hidden blade before they turned in for the night. It was the first time in the past four nights that Sandy could sleep without keeping an ear open.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

The bath house: Typical fixture in the middle east even to the present day, known in North America somewhat erroneously as 'Turkish Baths', these are in fact descendants from the Roman empire. They kind of fell out of grace in the rest of Europe due to people's erroneous misconception that they helped spread disease. However in the Islamic world, where washing was part of religious practice, they continued to flourish.

The dinner scene: A note on the absence of forks, at the time they were considered a novelty item, mostly a toy for the rich to play around with. They hadn't yet entered norm. And on the note of mutton served instead of beef, entirely common for the region. Cows require more pasture and food than sheep, hence they're more expensive to upkeep.

Rank breakdown: Inferred based on limited information, bear with me here. Training practices could fall into that too.

The Spaniard at dinner: He will be playing a slightly important role later, so he gets a cameo now. Before you think it odd, you have to know that Spain was under Moorish control during this period, which were Muslims.

**Director's Notes:**

Yes, this chapter did end up a little bit longer than normal, mostly due to the little bits of description there. I felt that to paint the best picture, skimping on the details would be a crime. I pride myself on my knowledge of history and it is in these instances where that knowledge comes into use. I hope you enjoyed reading it even as half as much as I enjoyed writing it.


	6. The Days of Change

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Well, this is chapter six. I wont bore you with a long head note when you're probably eager to dig your claws in, but this chapter totally shifts gears. Prepare to be go from 'aw' to hating me.

_**

* * *

Chapter VI:**__The Days of Change_

In the darkness of the night Sandy found herself in the valley again. Floating above the familiar camp like a spirit. The three bandits hovered over her sleeping form, and then her eyes drifted to Altair. He was slumped against a rock, unmoving, his body set into an unnatural and uncomfortable position. She could see the blood that covered him, slowly seeping from a wound over his heart, staining the whites of his tunics a brilliant crimson. Suddenly she felt angry, how dare the bandits harm him? The dying campfire surged at her and the flames spread. The embers lit the whole little valley and the bandits suddenly became aware of it. A great white eagle cast its shadow upon the bandits as it soared above them, letting out a single shrill cry into the night sky.

She lunged, vengeful and furious, the flames followed, there were no screams, nor any other sound save for the rushing _fhoosh_ of the surging flames as they roiled and heaved, rising and falling as everything they touched burned to ash and cinders. All the while she only felt perfect calm, the feeling of knowing this was right, this had to be done, and the bandits had to pay. In the light of the fire her shadow spread its broad wings, extending its long neck and legs, opening the crest upon its head, throwing open its long beak as if to call.

Suddenly the vision changed, she was facing the bandit again as he writhed, scratching and rubbing at his eyes after the sand she had thrown into them. The sensation of being within her body came back. The knife in her hand felt familiar, growing hot with righteous fury, and she did not hesitate plunging the blade into the brigand's stomach. She saw the look in his eyes as the knife was withdrawn, the blood flew and this time she did not dodge it. The man collapsed at her feet, and she watched him for a long moment before a shadow fell over his form. She looked up at Altair, alive and well, watching her, approval in his gold eyes. The horizon behind him was suddenly brighter as the sky began to turn from the dark blackish blue to the radiant gilded shades of the dawn. She glanced down at her hands, finding them both coated with blood. The liquid seemed warm and tingling with its own energy as it dripped off her hands to the sand at her feet.

Sandy awoke with a gasp as she shot up into a sitting position. Nausea rose suddenly, and her hand shot up to clutch at her mouth. He stomach continued to heave, shifting and roiling like an unsettled sea. Then there was a hand on her shoulder and the sensation was assuaged as if it had never come or had been a remnant of the dream. She lowered her hand away from her mouth, letting it fall into her lap.

"Is something wrong?" Altair asked.

"A dream, I saw it- no- _him_."

"Him?" he asked.

"The brigand, I saw his face as I stabbed him. He-" she paused. She stared at her hands as if they were still coated with his blood. "I did not want to kill, never, never. I always thought that there were peaceful solutions to everything in life, that violence was never the answer, but-"

"You start fires, do not tell me you never harmed anyone," Altair stated.

"Never!" Sandy turned to look at Altair and suddenly became aware of his proximity. He sat hovering over her shoulder, as if he too had simply sat up without moving. Had they been wrapped around each other again? She hadn't noticed upon waking. "I have always planned my tasks in such a manner that no one ended up hurt. I would wait for days for such chance if that were what it took. I refuse to harm anyone with the fires I set. Property can be replaced but lives cannot."

"If not by fire, then by your knives. You _never_ harmed anyone previously?" he asked.

Sandy shook her head, "Never- I never aimed to kill, cuts and nicks heal-"

"You have." Altair's hand on her shoulder shifted. "The guard in the alley when we met, the wound you inflicted was-"

"You killed him!" Sandy argued.

Altair stared into her eyes without flinching at her accusation. "While my strike gave him death quickly, the wound _you_ gave him was mortal. You condemned him to a slow and painful death. In a way my act was _mercy_," he spoke.

Sandy felt her jaw slacken and suddenly she turned away, "I'm-"

"Do not apologize to _me_," Altair cut in. "I'm beginning to see the problem, you are second-guessing your every decision, it robs you of inner peace, opens the doors to the demons of the night to torment you. You did what had to be done. Their lives in exchange for yours, no one in this fortress will look down upon you for that, and if anyone in your time would, they are _fools_."

Sandy bowed her head and knew he was right. In his frank way, Altair had just told her exactly what she had wanted to hear, he gave her the understanding and tolerance she needed. The demons were suddenly held at bay, but the darkness did not lift. What was the worth of acceptance and understanding given by an assassin?

Altair's hand on her shoulder moved, and suddenly his other was on the other shoulder as well. "Remorse is a good sign," he began in a softer, less biting tone than before, "It shows you that you are not a monster that feels nothing for the men whose lives you take, but you must not let the remorse control you."

"How is it that you know how to say just the right thing?" Sandy asked, looking up at him.

"You act as a novice who had just fulfilled his first mission. We would not coddle novices, but since you are not a novice-"

"You just threw the truth in my face, Altair, I would not call that _coddling_," Sandy murmured.

"Not in your view," he replied.

Sandy got to her knees and turned around; before Altair could move she swung her arms around his neck and pulled herself to embrace him. His hand settled on her waist and though he did not return the gesture, he let her stay like that for a seemingly too long a moment without speaking. She pulled away with a shy smile on her face and bowed her head. "Thank you."

Altair touched the top of her head and lay back again. "Go back to sleep now, this waking up hours before dawn is not natural," he ordered.

"Says you," Sandy shot back, but never the less obeyed. Somehow it didn't feel all that strange to be returning to the odd manner in which they invariably ended up in anyways. Sandy gently laid her head on his shoulder and her hand on his stomach as his right arm wrapped around her waist. The indigo material of his tunic was indeed silk, smooth silk, clearly expensive. Through it Sandy could feel the contours of his toned abdominals and she tried not to linger on that part. There was no use replacing the demon of remorse with the demon of embarrassment.

"Altair?" she asked, as if to check whether he was still awake.

His response was a faint hum that she felt more than heard.

"I'm sorry for disrupting your sleep so much like this."

His arm around her waist tightened and his fingers ghosted on her hip, "I just have to put up with it, you were thrashing in your sleep," he murmured.

Sandy clutched at the material of his tunic and sighed, shifting ever so slightly to get fully comfortable, she drifted off soon afterwards into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

Sandy woke some hours later; the warmth she felt told her that Altair was still there. She looked up, and wasn't all that much surprised to meet his gaze. "Good morning," she whispered.

"About time," he stated.

"Could've woken me up if my sleeping this much was bothering you." Sandy replied.

"There was no rush today," he explained with a grin.

Sandy pushed off him, having to place one hand on his chest to do so, discovering that he was ripped all over. Not overly defined like some overly pompous beach beefcake who was religious in his gym routine for the sole purpose of netting women. Altair was different, naturally sculpted by work, sinuous, but at the same time immensely strong. _Calvin Klein needs this guy_ she mused; _their sales would go through the roof and into orbit_. Keeping her thoughts concealed behind a faint smile she sat up and crossed her legs, putting her hands on her knees. "Well then, since I am up, what's on the agenda today?"

"I said I will show you the proper method of taking care of a horse, today is as good a day as any for that."

"Sounds like a plan, but can we have breakfast first?" she asked.

"If you're ready to go in the next ten minutes, your clothing is dry." Altair replied as he sat up and got to his feet.

"We're both going to have to dress- if you promise not to look, I'll promise not to look, and we can just-"

He clearly wasn't paying her any attention as he removed his silk tunic. In a single instant Sandy swallowed her tongue and choked on it when she saw what she felt under her hand. Despite the few scars here and there, he was a visage to immortalize as a statue! Sandy grabbed her tee shirt off the footboard and turned around. "Exhibitionist," she muttered as she fumbled around with her tunic. Altair snorted at the accusation, which was apparently as close as he came to laughing. _Damn you, you- you-_ Sandy cursed mentally, wishing she could utter the words aloud; _I'm never getting that image out of my head now!_

She turned her back to him to dress, but she couldn't help but hear every rustle of clothing, suddenly wishing desperately she could stick her fingers in her ears and begin to hum. Was he torturing her again? Revenge for interrupting his sleep last night? Was he that dastardly to come up with this, the worst form of tortures? _Gimmie the Chinese water torture, the death by a thousand cuts, the iron maiden, anything else! Just not seeing him half nude whenever I look at him!_

She slipped off her gray tunic and hastily pulled on her tee shirt. Glancing over her shoulder she was glad to see that he was already tying the red sash around his waist, blissfully with his back turned to her. Some part of her wondered where he got that insane speed at everything he did. She scrambled off the bed and quickly got into her jeans before he could accidently turn around and see anything.

She decided that if he were torturing her in this way now, he was sorely miscalculating the tactic; she would enjoy the view instead. She was a twenty-first century woman, and had seen plenty of guys shirtless on the beach. Of course, none of them had looked quite as delectable as Altair, but that was arguing semantics. His latest game wouldn't get to her, nope, not one little bit. She finished dressing as quickly as she could; beating him to the mark solely for the reason that he had more weapons to put on.

Sandy followed him as he went to the hall where breakfast was in full swing. They entered together and that opened a whole new can of discomfort as no one missed that part, least of all the serving maids. Fatima wasn't among them but Sandy knew she'd know eventually. Her eyes caught what she felt was the first of many dark looks from one of the maids; she tried not to let it bother her. It wasn't like she was interested in Altair like they were.

Walking behind him to her seat, she decided that Fatima was wrong in so many ways when she said Altair was perfection itself. For one he was nigh insufferable, oddly kind in his way one moment, rude and arrogant the next. Even the moments when he was kind his words were anything but and often his tone was one of a lord looking down on an erring servant. The maids really knew nothing if they insisted on pursuing him. They were better off that he paid them no attention, less hearts broken, because the way Sandy figured that's all a relationship of that nature with him would lead to. She had plenty of those in her life before; she wasn't about to go looking for heartbreak number three, especially in this time.

They sat in the same spot, in the same seats, but it seemed that it was mostly his preference to sit there, as aside from ranking breakdown the rest of the assassins sat at their tables at will. Sandy had to snap herself out of her critical evaluation, and chose to put up a masking smile that Mona Lisa herself would be hard pressed to beat. Like dinner the previous night they ate in silence, unlike the previous night the silence was so awkward on Sandy's side that she chewed her food moodily, looking in the other direction as to not catch Altair's eye.

Breakfast was a simpler affair than dinner; a single course that consisted on freshly baked bread stuffed with lightly spiced meat, served with more tea. Sandy forced herself to drink it, but it was so strong and bitter that she almost couldn't.

Things only turned more awkward as one of the other elites arrived late, it was the Spaniard from the night before, and he had insisted in introducing himself to Sandy. His hood had been down so Sandy got a good look at him, and he wasn't entirely unhandsome with his dark hair let to grow longer as to have a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and brown eyes. His features had a regal sort of quality that made him seem more fit the romantic image knight.

His accent was quite heavy when he spoke, and Sandy tried being not too disturbed at being hit on by a man probably ten years her senior. She only managed to catch his name, _Antonio_, before Altair reminded him that she was a guest and not one of the maid girls. The effect had been something, the Spanish backed half a step away as if taken aback, never the less a moment later he sat down in the empty seat next to her and attempted to strike up a conversation no less than four times. Sandy tried being polite, but it was like sitting between two high-powered magnets set to the same polarity, her skin crawled most unpleasantly. She was all too glad to leave the great hall, trailing behind Altair like his shadow and trying not to wonder what the hell was going on. At the fortress' gates she just had to ask the inevitable, "Does he always do that?"

"Always," Altair replied. "But he's skilled, so we're all forced to tolerate him for one reason or another."

"I don't think I've ever been hit on by someone so much older than me," Sandy muttered.

"Hit on?" Altair wondered.

"Pursued, you know- as in romantically. He's at least thirty, I'm twenty-two."

"Thirty three," Altair corrected.

"Oh _thank you_."

Past that point the conversation lapsed again until they got to the stables. Antonio's antics banished all the awkwardness she felt before to the back corner of her mind. Upon inspection of the horses Sandy was somewhat disappointed to find that her mare had been washed and brushed by the stable hands the evening before, so she had little to do past listen to theory while Nyx munched on grain and hay happily, watching them with her large dark eyes.

Altair, still oblivious to the heinous crime he had committed, eased into his demonstration; Sandy had noted that when she used the word 'lesson', or so much as hinted that he was teaching her anything, he would frown just ever so slightly. His frowns were even less noticeable than his rare lopsided smirks and grins. Deciding to ponder on it later, maybe at the baths tonight, she focused instead on watching Altair's explanations when it came to caring for Nyx.

Finally half an hour later, with the brief tutorial complete, Altair moved to check on Talimar, leaving Sandy in the box alone with Nyx. Seeing an opportunity, she pulled out an apple she had stashed in the sleeve of her jacket and offered it to the horse. "Come, have an apple." She whispered to the animal, "Just don't tell anyone."

The mare bobbed her head and took a loud crunch from the proffered fruit; the apple wasn't big, so half of it was gone in a split second, evoking a chuckle from Sandy. The mare then reached down and took the other half, crunching on it as well. When done with that, she nudged Sandy with her nose and began to sniff.

"Sorry girl, I only swiped one. I'll bring you one more another time." Sandy whispered, patting the beast on the neck. Then she took the brush that hung on a peg just outside the box and decided to practice her technique. Nyx let herself be brushed gently, keeping perfectly still for the procedure, though after a few moments she went back to her hay.

Some minutes later, out of the corner of her eye Sandy saw Altair approach; she patted Nyx on the neck to draw her attention before she spoke, "Something wrong?"

"One of Talimar's shoes is loose, I'm going to find the farrier, stay here," he ordered.

"Alright," Sandy replied, with that said she turned back to brushing Nyx.

Altair must've been gone for less than a minute when Sandy heard footsteps and clinking, she didn't pay attention to the sound as she thought he had found the farrier already.

"_Senorita_ Cassandra," a voice spoke, quiet and accented.

Sandy startled and Nyx let out a snort, stomping her hoof. Looking up at Antonio, she patted the horse on the neck to assure her. "I'm sorry girl, he startled me and I went and startled you."

"Is that your horse?" Antonio asked, reaching to pat the horse as well.

Sandy smiled and nodded, "yes, this is Nyx. Is there something I can help you with?"

"No, _senorita_, I had just come to apologize for my behavior at breakfast. I hadn't realized that at the time I was making things awkward for you."

"Thank you, but it's alright, no harm done." Sandy smiled softly.

"Where is your guardian?" Antonio asked as he leaned on the door of the horse's box, smiling at her roguishly, resting his left hand on the pommel of the long sword at his side.

It was then that Sandy noticed the lack of wrist blade, he simply had a pair of small flat knives tucked into sheathes at the inside of his wrists. It got her wondering, was Altair among the only ones who used that weapon? She hadn't seen very many other assassins with such a blade. Antonio's arsenal wasn't as extensive either, limited to a long sword at his left side, a short sword at his right, and three other knives tucked into leather loops on his left boot. The leather harness wrapped around his chest bore no sheathes at the back and his armored belt had more pouches for various items but no other sheathes.

"His horse has a loose shoe, he went to find the farrier," she replied, turning back to brushing Nyx.

"He shall be back soon then, it's best he does not see me here," Antonio said.

Sandy looked up from brushing Nyx and glanced at the man, not missing the tense set in his shoulders and the way he eyed the doors of the stable. It didn't take much to realize even he was wary of Altair for whatever reason. Why were so many people seemingly so afraid of him? Sure he wasn't the nicest individual, not by a long shot, but he wasn't that scary, was he? Was she out of touch that she failed to see something? Sandy opened her mouth to speak when she heard the approaching urgent voice of a man speaking to someone.

"I have been caught!" Antonio exclaimed.

Sandy laughed and watched as the Spaniard ducked into Nyx's box and in a display of athleticism apparently not uncommon for elite assassins, he pulled himself through the window and outside, pausing by the frame long enough to wink at her before he vanished.

Wiping the smile off her face Sandy turned to where the voices were coming from. Altair walked through the main doors with the farrier. The other man looked genuinely on edge and was doing his best to reason himself out of the situation he found himself in. Trying to assure Altair that Talimar's shoes hadn't been loose the previous evening when he was inspected. Altair did not seem to be buying it at all, Sandy felt somewhat bad for the poor farrier. However she figured the man was getting off easy, Altair did not have that basilisk stare of his aimed at him. In the end she ended up watching as Altair supervised the re-shoeing of Talimar, and the two left only when he was satisfied with the fit.

Overall Sandy felt happy after taking care of Nyx and spending any amount of time somewhere remotely relaxing. She had a feeling that she would never look at horses the same way again. She only had Nyx for one day, but she already liked the mare. What's a little work when one enjoyed the fruits of the labor so much? Despite the sore muscles she liked to ride. She followed Altair back to the castle with a small smile on her face and a new spring in her step, today looked like it would be a good day.

* * *

Jamal watched the pair like a hawk as they walked past the gates of the citadel towards the entry doors. The woman had a beaming smile on her face and the two walked side-by-side, close enough to converse in whispers if they had wanted, but they weren't talking. To him it seemed they were merely basking in each other's very presence. Yet as the woman stumbled, Altair's hand shot out to take hold of her shoulder, showing just how aware of her presence he was.

"Look at them," Jamal spoke to his friend who stood beside him. "That woman is a jinni, I am positive of that. But now I have other proof I need, I have always known that Altair was not of our kind, an ifrit at least, a shaitan at worst. He finally shows his true nature by bringing that _creature_ here to cavort with."

"Her dress is unusual, and her hair and eyes are exotic, I'll give you that, but that does not make her a jinni, Jamal. She seemed friendly enough at dinner last night; her smile was indeed a sight to behold, genuine and innocent as a child's. I am not surprised that such a smile is capable of reaching even the coldest of hearts."

"Jinni charms!" Jamal argued angrily as he turned his gaze on his companion. "She smiles and charms, she pretends to be coy around men so that she may more effectively use them to her devices. Do not let your guard down."

"I hope you're not thinking of doing something to her. Word has gone out, Altair has been assigned by Al Mualim to guard her."

"He can't watch her every waking moment. There will come a time when I will get my chance to reveal her true nature for all to see."

The other assassin looked dubious and Jamal felt anger boiling. Why couldn't anyone see what was right in front of their faces? Altair had always been able to do things that no one else could mimic; his skill and power couldn't possibly be human. Now he brought with him such an odd woman, and she too was unlike any woman he had ever seen. Her appearance, manners, and openness were bordering on immodest. Then there was her skill with a knife. Where and how had she learned? He did not believe her explanation. No sane man would teach a woman to wield a blade with any proficiency, and yet she proffered just that, and what more went on to prove it.

Faisal wasn't a weakling, Jamal would not have taken the trainee as his pupil had there been a lack of potential. Yet she had beaten him, Jamal was sure that was the work of trickery, some power. He had seen his pupil wince as his wrist was wrenched, what kind of woman had that kind of strength in such small hands? The knife she had wielded was almost stranger than her clothing. In his mind all of that was just further damning evidence for the bygone conclusion that she was a malicious spirit that came following the call of another. No woman would dare lift a hand against a bandit, and much less actually succeed. Altair's sudden interest in this woman when he ignored the pitifully pathetic attempts of the castle servants was more proof. There was an unholy union happening, and if he had to do all the work himself, he'd prove it. Jamal vowed to expose those two foul creatures, no matter how long and what it took.

* * *

Sandy found herself starting at a pair of doors that led to the kitchens, left alone by Altair after he told her to make herself useful while he had business to attend to. She had grumbled, but decided not to wear out his patience too much. He seemed oddly tense all of the sudden, as if he had caught wind of something. She entered kitchen and it was like entering a sauna. The room was impossibly hot, heated by the large wood-fired stone ovens that were always baking the many types of bread that the assassins ate.

The other women were so busy that it took them a moment to notice her. However, when they did she quickly found herself on the receiving end of many looks, and many more questions, some more personal than others. It was Fatima who stuck up for her, causing the other women to ease off. For that Sandy was grateful, she spent a couple hours helping with odd tasks that had to do with dinner preparations. There was no time for idle hands, but ample time for idle tongues in the kitchens.

Quickly Sandy discovered that feeding so many men wasn't an easy task. Food had to be made in vast quantities, larger than she would've thought. The head cook, the mistress of the kitchen as she was called, could name her trickiest costumers, and even say who ate double if not triple the quantity of the next man. It boggled Sandy's mind that this woman in her forties could remember such details about so many different men whom Sandy had trouble simply telling apart.

The job was made easier by a handful of trainees, some as young as ten earning their keep and simultaneously training for strength and endurance by hauling things from the vast stores in the underground catacombs of the fort. A few young girls were milling about as well, carrying bowls, tools, and washing the dirty dishes. The mistress was a fair lady, but she demanded them to be quick about their tasks.

The hours passed quickly and the sun was dipping low in the western sky when the mistress of the kitchen pulled her away from stirring a large pot with an equally large wooden spoon, announcing that Altair had returned for her, and that she should hurry up and get him away from the kitchen before his presence slowed down the work. Sandy chuckled, patted Fatima on the shoulder, telling her that they should meet in the baths again, and left.

The next two days passed in a similar fashion, with each passing day making Altair more and more edgy, apparently due to a lack of a job. Sandy had become a fixture in the kitchens, passing the long hours of the day keeping busy. She actually enjoyed her work there, it was busy but exciting. She had made friends with a few of the other women and the head cook treated her well. When the matron had discovered that Sandy did not shrink away from the open flames in the ovens she was declared the person in charge of removing ready bread from it.

It was her third day when one of the young trainees tripped over a loose rock and fell, breaking open a large clay pot of flour. The boy, no older than ten had looked like he was expecting pain, but instead the mistress gave him a broom and told him to sweep up what he spilled. Sandy and Fatima, seeing that the flour was still needed, volunteered to go down into the stores to bring another supply.

They stepped out of the kitchens and turned down the corridor towards the underground stores, talking about the boy's ridiculous expression and barely suppressed tears. Fatima didn't think he'd ever be calm and collected enough to actually take a life. Sandy understood the unspoken message there. Not everyone who trained in Masyaf became as skilled as Altair. It made him seem even more impressive that he was almost the undisputed best. She let Fatima lead her towards the stores, and they had just passed a fork in the passages when Sandy heard footsteps behind them.

"Well this is a surprise," a voice spoke.

Both women turned around, and Sandy was instantly uncomfortable, barring their retreat was Jamal, and he had a very odd expression on his face. Sandy knew trouble when she saw it. Altair's warning to avoid this man came up and suddenly Sandy felt trapped.

"Fatima, its best we go back, this guy- I was told to avoid him." She whispered.

When the two made to step around Jamal, he let Fatima pass, but stepped right in front of Sandy.

"Fatima go!" Sandy commanded, instantly alarmed.

"Oh!" Fatima's eyes widened as she bunched her skirts in her hands and ran off.

"Excuse me," Sandy made a move to get around Jamal.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, little jinni." he replied, moving to still block her.

Sandy took a few steps back and watched as he grinned maliciously. She didn't move for a long moment before feinting to the right and then sharply veering left to get around him.

She thought she cleared him when she felt his hand around her wrist again, "No use running!" he sneered, yanking on her arm before he let go, sending her careening into the wall.

Sandy shot out her other hand to absorb the impact but it was a lot stronger than she readied herself for, her elbow buckled with the jarring impact that traveled up her forearm, and the next instant pain exploded through her whole right side as her wrist twisted, her elbow and shoulder hit the wall simultaneously, and the side of her head smacked into the stones with the carried momentum. Sandy glanced off, instantly dazed, she stumbled a short step before collapsing unto her hands and knees.

Her vision darkened and her right ear began to ring from impact. She felt the unmistakable warm ticklish sensation of blood trickling through her hair. The pain pounding through her head threatened overwhelmed her. Suddenly her whole body felt alien and unresponsive to her and the sound of Jamal's laughter was distant and unfocused, muted by the ringing.

"What's the matter jinni?" he sneered.

Sandy tried to reply, but the weakness in her muscles only grew and she collapsed fully unto the floor. The ringing in her ear eased for a split of a second, allowing a brief hope in the footsteps she heard echoing down the hall and the trailing clinking of a sword in its sheath. She tried to call out to Altair, but the sound came out garbled and inarticulate, little more than a gurgle past her disobedient throat, and then everything faded and world went black.

* * *

He had been minding his own business, going to the kitchen to beg off an early meal from the lovely flowers that resided within that hall of delicacies, when look and behold none other than Fatima had come running from the supply passage as if _el Diablo_ himself was on her heels, calling for help as she went. The girl careened right into him, and he had to grip her shoulders to stop her long enough to hear what was wrong. She gasped for air, mouth moving as if a fish out of water, the look in her eyes was one of panic and it instantly set off alarms in his trained mind. Finally she barely managed to gasp out the names of Jamal and Cassandra and he was already running down the passage where she came from. "Find Altair!" he had shouted over his shoulder, not caring if the girl did not understand him fully.

Now, as he stopped twenty feet away, the sight he saw in the hallway did not amuse him one bit. Jamal was kneeling over the woman's prone body with the most evil of looks in his eyes and a knife in his hand.

"Jamal!" he shouted.

"Curse that little wench," the man uttered, getting to his feet.

"What is the meaning of this?" Antonio demanded.

"The meaning? Just exposing a jinni," Jamal replied.

Antonio's eyes narrowed as he placed his right hand on the hilt of the short sword at his side. "Step away from her," he ordered, pulling the weapon free from its sheath.

Jamal glowered at him and then lunged, flying at him like an arrow with his knife raised high. Antonio blocked the hit with his short sword and swung his other fist low, catching the other man in the gut, causing him to buck.

Jamal swore inarticulately and swung his free arm, yanking another of his knives out, the attack caught Antonio off guard as the knife plunged into his right upper arm, gauging as rending as it went. Antonio swung his left, sending Jamal into the wall, but the man caught himself before he hit it.

"She will die," Jamal sneered.

Instantly incensed, Antonio went after Jamal, switching the short sword to his left hand. He didn't need the Al Mualim's permission to end the life of this pathetic man after he had attacked a woman viciously enough to rend her unconscious on the floor. As if attacking and wounding him wasn't a crime in on of itself.

Jamal feinted around him and laughed, running down the hall towards the kitchens. Antonio almost gave chase but thought better of it, as Jamal wouldn't get far. Instead he sheathed his short sword and turned around, kneeling next to the woman, turning her unto her back as gently as he could. The wound Jamal gave him rendered his right arm weak, forcing him to struggle with hooking it under the woman's knees to lift her.

Then he heard two sets of footsteps from one of the other passages, with one accompanied by the clinking of weapons, and a second lighter set that unmistakably belonged to a woman. Fatima has brought reinforcement.

"Over here!" Antonio shouted.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Farrier: A person responsible for shoeing and taking care of the hooves of horses. In those times they also made the horseshoes, kind of like blacksmiths. However, I do not want to use the term blacksmith, because in context I see those being more responsible for making the weapons the assassins use.

Jinni: According to pre and post Islamic tradition they are supernatural creatures that possessed free will. They can be both benign and malicious, but they are consummate tricksters, and evil jinni's tricks often led men astray from the path of righteousness and faith.

Ifrit: A stronger type of jinni noted for their strength and cunning, though they too could be good or evil, most are depicted to be wicked and ruthless.

Shaitan: There are couple meanings to this term, all sort of interconnected, however I'm using it in the context of a very powerful malicious spirit that tempts others around it to do sin and rebel. These are characterized by their excessive pride.

**Director's Notes:**

Yes, I know you probably hate me for this, the most evil of cliffhangers. However in my defense I will say that's what makes suspense so grand. This chapter was a little challenging to write because of the emotional whiplash. It goes from cute to funny, to dark. I had to spend a little longer than usual on debating the details, particularly the dream sequence and its symbolism, and there is a lot of dream symbolism there, I will post a link to the dictionary I 'used' in my profile, if you want to play a bit of a scavenger hunt. I hope you enjoyed it regardless. Thank you for reading,


	7. The Separation

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Chapter 7 is finally here. I bet some of you were all waiting for it with abated breaths, or at least I hope some of you were. Well enjoy.

_**

* * *

Chapter VII**_: _The Separation_

Sandy slowly became aware of herself after floating in a fathomless void for a seeming eternity. Her ear was still ringing, and her head was positively ready to split in half due to pain. Something was wrapped a bit too tightly around her temples, and as she opened her eyes her vision swam in and out of focus. Her peripheral vision was nearly shot; it was like looking through frosted glass. There was a breeze passing through the room, she could feel the moving air currents on her suddenly hypersensitive skin.

Somewhere distantly to her left there was a moving cloth, swaying back and forth, she could hear clearly from her left ear while her right kept ringing. That meager sound almost made the migraine worse and suddenly Sandy was glad for the darkness of the room, because had it been brighter she knew her eyes would not have liked it. She raised her hand to feel the thing pressuring her head, discovering that it was bandaging. Then she heard familiar clinking, and a pair of slow footsteps approaching her bed.

"Altair?" she asked, slurring the syllables.

A chuckle was her answer. "No, he is hunting down Jamal."

"Who?" Sandy asked, looking to her side. Her vision was almost useless, as if she had grown horribly nearsighted between the last time she had been awake and now. However she could just make out a white blob with long tails, an armored belt, but no glimmer of knives on it, and the person's hood was down. The biggest giveaway was the accent in his voice; it was decidedly not Altair's.

The blob kneeled beside her bed and picked up her left hand, bringing it to his lips to place a kiss on her knuckles. "_Senorita_, am I that forgettable?" he asked.

It was then that Sandy recognized the voice, albeit belatedly. "Antonio."

"It is a good sign that you can recognize me and remember my name," he stated. "How are you feeling?"

"Like-" Sandy paused, choosing her analogy carefully to be devoid of anything modern. "Like a full caravan had just trampled over me."

Antonio laughed heartily, "This is a good sign indeed! The healer had told me that should you wake on my watch I was to test your ability to think rationally, apparently everything is as it should be."

"Except you're just one large blob to me, I can't see clearly." Sandy replied.

"That is temporary, it should start clearing within the next half an hour and be gone within a day or two at most. Do you remember what happened?" he asked.

"I think-" Sandy murmured. "Jamal threw me into the wall- and then…"

"That bastard!" Antonio's voice boomed, causing Sandy to wince.

"Please, not so loud!"

"My apologies," his voice softened as he stroked her hand. This reminded Sandy that he was still holding it; she had forgotten to pull free from his grip. An oversight she promptly corrected. "I had thought that he had-" he stopped, as if the words were too unpalatable to speak.

"Merely hit me?" Sandy asked.

"_Si_."

"It's okay, I'm tough, and no hit on the head will stop me." Sandy stated.

Antonio hummed and Sandy looked up again at him, noticing that the mist in front of her eyes was less thick closer up. She could begin discerning the shadows of his features. It was then she noticed that his right sleeve was stained with red and ripped open. Wound around his richly tanned upper arm was the unmistakable blob of a bandage stained with yet more blood. His right arm seemed to be in a sling that she had initially missed because it was white and at a distance it had blended with his tunic.

"You're injured," she stated.

"Jamal's doing, it is not as serious as your injury, do not worry for me," Antonio replied.

"When?" she asked, looking into his face.

"It was I who reached you first in that passage, I fought Jamal."

Sandy blinked; he was the one who had found her? She looked into Antonio's face and wished she could see clearly, to gage his expression, but in the meantime she would have to do. "Thank you," she bowed her head.

Antonio placed his left hand on her shoulder and got to his feet, "The healer said its best you do not sleep again for as long as you can. Apparently the hit was powerful enough to confuse your body."

"Concussion," Sandy muttered to herself. The facts added up, a sharp blow to the head, the loss of visual focus that was going away, the ring in her ear at the side of the impact, the mild nausea that she felt. She was pretty sure that had she had dinner, she would've thrown it up by now. So far the only reason why she wasn't heaving was the fact that her stomach was empty.

"That is an unfamiliar term, is that what they call this form of injury where you're from?" he asked.

"Well- yes, sort of." She looked up, wondering if he knew the full of the story or not. There was no reason why he would, but maybe someone had let the cat out the bag, she couldn't discount the possibility. However for a time she would treat it as if he didn't know, just to be on the safe side.

"Where would that be? I have never seen clothing-" Antonio stopped mid sentence and straightened.

Sandy was instantly, "What is it?" she asked.

"Someone is coming," he announced.

Sandy strained her good ear, turning it to the door. Now that her eyes adjusted to the gloom fully, she could see the room she was in blurry blobs, but clear enough to recognize features. She was in some sort of hall; the moonlight filtering through three windows told her it was the dead of night. She could see the shapes of furniture she assumed were beds, denoting the place as the infirmary. The entrance was just an archway, with a dark stone corridor past it.

As the person drew closer she heard the faint clinking before she heard the footsteps, and then a white blob drifted into her field of vision. She recognized the outlines instantly; the glimmering deadly arsenal on his person, and the stiff posture. The recognition brought a big smile to her face.

"Did you find him?" Antonio asked.

"No." Altair replied.

Sandy sat up slowly, her right shoulder and elbow protesting the movement with sharp stabbing pains, her hip joining the fray with a dull throb. She tried to keep her face perfectly neutral as she swung her legs over the edge of her bed, even her knees were complaining in pain, though nowhere near as bad as her head. She glanced first at Antonio and then at Altair.

"Then what?" Antonio asked, shifting his weight.

"None of your business," Altair replied.

"It _is_ my business now! For whatever reason Jamal did what he did, both _senorita_ Cassandra and I are injured for it, and I was injured doing _your_ job!" Antonio shot back, voice raised in sudden angry.

Altair shifted his weight; Sandy noted the way the reflections off his weapons changed position ever so slightly. She glanced at Antonio and reached out to touch his arm. "Can you not shout please?" she asked.

"My apologies," Antonio looked back at her and bowed his head.

"It's alright," Sandy smiled. "Now I want to ask something of you. Did the medic say how long I'll have to stay here?" she asked.

Antonio thought for a second but then shook his head. "No, he did not. Do you wish me to find out?" he asked.

"That'd be nice," Sandy replied, mumbling the words.

Antonio watched her for a long second. Sandy realized her excuse to get him out of the room was feeble and obvious, but it was the best she could think of. She didn't need her eyes to see the animosity storm brewing; she knew it was best to separate these two somehow before things boiled over. Antonio's words had just hit something within Altair. Though without use of her eyes she couldn't tell what it was.

"Alright, I'll be right back." The Spaniard said, and with a pat on her shoulder he turned around and walked to the door.

Sandy watched Antonio leave. The two men exchanged what were probably glares as he passed Altair, who stood by the door, leaning his back unto the wall. She silently counted to ten to wait for Antonio to get out of earshot before she turned to Altair. The thirty odd feet between them rendered him a complete blur to her eyes, and yet every fiber in her being told her to thread the minefield carefully.

"What's going on?" she asked.

He remained silent, as if her words had not traveled thirty feet. As the silence lingered Sandy began to wonder if speaking to him was a good idea at all. With each second the awkwardness was growing and she realized that there was an unlikely benefit to suddenly being horribly nearsighted; she couldn't see the glare he probably was throwing.

"Jamal was stripped of his ranks and privileges, I was assigned to hunt him down and bring him back. I'm leaving with the first light." He finally spoke after what felt like nigh short of eternity to Sandy, but probably was a scant minute or two.

"Thanks for telling me, I'll-"

"You are staying _here_." He interjected in a deathly calm tone that sent an uncomfortable shiver down Sandy's spine.

"No way! I'm coming too!" she protested as she slipped off the bed and got to her feet. Her wobbly legs did almost nothing to support her frame and she stumbled half a step before she managed to right herself by grabbing unto the side of the bed.

Altair pushed off the wall and approached with his arms crossed over his chest, "You cannot even _stand_ straight much less ride a horse." He stated in the same calm, cold tone. It was a tone Sandy had never heard coming from him, not even in all the other times he had blatantly thrown the truth in her face.

"This will go away, give me a couple hours!" she protested.

"No. Not this time." Altair replied. "I do not need you slowing me down."

"Sl- slowing you down?" Sandy stuttered, her eyes widening.

"Do you have a problem with that?" he asked, dipping his voice low as he now hovered over her.

"In fact I do!" Sandy replied, putting her hands on her hips. "He hurt _me_, I have about as much right to go after him as you do. This is a matter of pri-" Sandy stopped suddenly, realizing what she had just almost uttered.

"Pride?" he finished.

Sandy nodded, looking up and seeing his expression for the first time. The basilisk look was out in force and set on vaporize, but then a split of a second later it was aimed past her shoulder at the windows, into the night. As she raised her hand to her mouth, the look snapped back to her and then dissipated. Suddenly things began to fall in place in her addled mind, Antonio's jibe earlier and Altair's reaction, the shift in his weight, the anger she judged was the cause of his stiff posture. She has missed something, something vital, there was more there than just anger. How could she have been so blind? The answer was right there all along, staring her in the face. She took a step back and leaned heavily on the bed.

He was a complete workaholic, and a perfectionist to boot. The kitchen girls giggled about his nigh flawless record, marred only by one incident they would not talk about as if he was hovering over them in spirit. The girls were terrified of speaking of that incident, leaving her only to guess. For all of a split second Sandy managed to ease into his shoes and walk a mile in them. He was assigned to keep an eye on her and then what happened? Now he was assigned to hunt down the offender, and she was asking him to knowingly place her in more danger. Her own stupidity crashed over her and seemingly took whatever will to fight she had in her body out with the subsequent riptide.

Yet with that sudden understanding came a new sort of feeling, a humbling sort of feeling that made her realize that it was best she back down just this once. Tipping her head to the side she smiled. In that split of a second he stepped away and she reached out and touched his arm in the faintest of ghostly brushes. "I think I understand, and you're right, I would slow you down. I guess I was just getting ahead of myself there. But at least… promise me you'll be careful."

Altair looked back at her with an almost completely emotionless expression on his face. Then his arms dropped to his sides and the stubborn set of his chin eased. "He will not lay a hand on me, so you needn't worry, instead use the energy to recover fully."

"I'll do better than that, mark my words. I have a hard head you know." Sandy replied as she sat back on the bed. Altair's lips twitched as he tried to restrain a grin. It was some sort of miracle that she managed to see it, but considered it a small triumph, a home run at the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded and the team down two runs.

"Don't let Antonio too close," he spoke as he approached the doorway.

Sandy raised a hand and waved, and with a final look she really couldn't see well he slipped out. Sandy smiled widely and got back to her feet, stepping around the bed, using it and its neighbors to make her way to one of the windows where she stood, staring into the night, her arms crossed over her chest.

It was probably half an hour later that she heard the double clink that she realized was Antonio. At first the sound had been eerily similar to Altair, but now to her slightly cleared mind, the two were nothing alike. _An honest mistake, nothing to be embarrassed about, _she assured herself. However, as the footsteps neared she realized there were two sets; this surprised Sandy enough to look away from the window.

"_Senorita_ Cassandra, I have brought a visitor, he has something to tell you." Antonio declared, pushing a gray-clad youth to the front, causing the boy to stumble. The trainee righted himself and approached halfway between the door and the windows before he paused, watching her.

Sandy tried not to give away that she couldn't see clearly, but to her the gray blob nearly blended with the surroundings, even the moonlight failed to give him enough definition to be recognizable past the fact that it was a trainee.

"I want to apologize," the boy spoke.

Sandy recognized the voice instantly; though quiet and subdued, very different from the heated words he spoke in the rink; it was still the same cracking, not yet fully mature sort of tone of a young boy. "For what?" she asked.

He kneeled and bowed his head, which made discerning him all the more difficult for her eyes. "For the actions of my mentor, for the injury he has given both you and Master Antonio."

Sandy approached, using the beds to support her unsteady walk. "There is no need, Faisal. His actions do not reflect unto you."

The youth looked up sharply.

Sandy went on before he could speak. "I accept your apology, but you should know Faisal, even though our spar that day may have been the trigger, it was _not_ the full cause. As such I do not bear any ill will towards you. In fact-" she paused to go down on one knee in front of Faisal, "Once I am back to my full strength maybe- I would like to spar again."

"_Senorita_-" Antonio began but Sandy held up a hand as Faisal got to his feet.

"I will not lose," the trainee replied, gaining back some arrogant confidence.

"Oh won't you now?" Sandy asked, getting to her feet and putting her hands on her hips. "We shall see."

"Is that all you wanted to tell the lady?" Antonio asked in an annoyed tone, placing his left hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Yes, for now." Faisal replied, glancing back at Antonio.

"Good, scamper off."

Faisal spared her a final look but left with no argument. Nevertheless, Sandy caught the faint hint that he resented being treated like that. She turned to give a glare to Antonio, but decided it was useless. "What did he do?" she asked instead.

"Nothing other than learn from that bastard. Faisal's arrogance is decidedly _his_," Antonio explained.

"He is still a child, he will emulate his mentors and role models," Sandy replied.

"He is no _child_. That boy is a mid-level trainee, he will be initiated should he survive the next two years of training."

"I do not wish to argue over this, Antonio. We see things on two different levels, and that is in part due to how and where I grew up. As such we shall simply agree to disagree."

Antonio nodded dumbly, speechless if only for a moment.

"Now about that healer-" Sandy went on.

"Ah yes!" Antonio exclaimed, brightening instantly. "I have enquired into your question. He wishes to keep you here for a day more, but after that you are free to return to where it is you have been lodging."

Sandy shifted her weight; free to go where it is she had been lodging? That'd be Altair's quarters, and he'd be gone by then. She didn't want to tell Antonio that fact. What would be the arrangement while Altair was gone? How long was he gone for? The predicament sent her mind into overdrive, buzzing with a million thoughts that only made the headache worse. "I'm afraid my current lodging predicament will have to be-"

"If you are referring to your staying with Altair, I assure you _senorita_ it is no big secret from the observant among us," Antonio spoke.

Sandy looked up sharply, surprise coloring her expression before she could bury it under a mask of utter indifference.

"I spoke with Altair in the hallway upon his departure here and he had made a reference in passing to keeping you exactly where you currently lodge, even in his absence. He may think he chose his words carefully but I am not the fool he takes me for."

"That-" Sandy began but stopped. What could she say that would not compromise the man's true motive? The more she thought about it, the more she realized that Altair was acting out of some feeling of duty, some will to compensate for whatever failure he felt he had done. She would not go as far as to say there was any remorse involved, no, he had been harsh enough to bluntly throw the brutal truth in her face at the opportune moment. There were no guilty feelings there, just duty. "Well I shall have to thank him for that when he returns."

"That is more than he deserves," Antonio stated coolly.

"Antonio," Sandy began quietly, "Please do not make such comments about him in my presence. I feel that if you must blame anyone for anything, up to and including your injury, part of the blame should be placed on me, because were it not for my presence here none of this would have happened."

Antonio's jaw loosened and hung there for a long moment, the silence rang with a deafening cacophony that was not just her ear. Sandy idly wondered when that issue would go away, the ringing in her right ear was problematic and annoying. It was so sharp that she could only hear low frequency sounds through it.

"Pardon me, _Senorita_."

"No harm done," Sandy smiled faintly and then glanced at the window. She wondered where these windows were facing. Would she be able to see the sun rise over the horizon? She crossed her arms, placing her hands on her elbows and lapsed into staring out into the night.

* * *

Altair left the fortress even before first light, intent on getting an early start. The hours since his return to the fortress after searching the town thoroughly for a sign of Jamal had dragged and his patience was at an end. He ignored the greeting calls from the night sentries as he walked to the stables, taking the shortest route possible. He wasn't very surprised to find Talimar saddled, with provisions already attached, and ready to go.

He didn't glance back at the fort as he pulled himself up into the saddle and took the horse out past the town's gates, kicking him into full canter. Jamal had hours of a head start on him, but Altair knew that it wouldn't matter in the end. There was only one place where the likes of Jamal would run to hide now. The one place that was familiar and comforting to him, Damascus, his birth city. If he pushed Talimar he could be there by nightfall.

He would find that backstabber and bring him back, then demand the right to kill him personally. The attack on Cassandra had been a crass reminder of how ugly the world could be. To think that among the brotherhood had been such a parasite, harboring such ill will to an innocent simply for affronting their pride. Even he drew a line short of petty violent vengeance upon those who had done little more than insult his pride.

Altair knew that he had failed to notice the true danger that Jamal had presented to Sandy when he had pushed her into the rink against Faisal. What should have been a humbling lesson to the arrogant man and his pupil had gotten out of hand. Her injury was something that did not sit well with him for the sole reason that she had been caught up in something she knew nothing about. He had the full intention of making it something she would never find out about either. Let her maintain her innocent naïveté, let it all be a single unfortunate side effect of his slight oversight, even if in the end it still served the brotherhood by weeding out a maniac among them.

As Talimar flew by the outer marker gates and unto the road beyond the fort's outer protected limits Altair urged the horse to go faster still. He would also keep an eye on the surroundings; after all, Jamal could very well just hide in one of the many small valleys and nooks that dotted the countryside here. He would think himself clever to do so, to let pursuit pass so he could bear down on them from behind. The plan could probably work on any lesser assassin, but not him, Altair knew the countryside better than anyone did.

* * *

The sun shining on her face caused Sandy to jolt awake with a start. Her eyes widened when she realized she had dozed off on the bed closest to the window of the infirmary. A blanket was draped over her frame, and there was a soft humming in the room. She turned her head and spotted Fatima who sat in a chair by her bed, fast at work darning clothing casually. The humming was her melodious voice as she worked.

It took Sandy all of a split second to realize her vision was much clearer, she could see Fatima nearly pristinely, but the girl was only sitting three feet away. The rest of the room was still a little fuzzy in the farthest reaches. The ringing in her right ear had also subsided considerably, now a faint buzzing that could easily be ignored.

"Good morning Fatima," Sandy greeted.

The girl looked up sharply and her eyes widened, "Morning? It is early afternoon!" she exclaimed. "But how are you?"

"I'm feeling a lot better, thank you. I didn't realize I had dozed off. I shouldn't have been sleeping."

"The medic would have woken you had it not been for Antonio, he seemed convinced that you were of sound function not to be in danger."

Sandy chuckled, "That is arguable, I actually quarreled with him on the matter of a certain comment he made. A comment I had no taste for at the time, but now I think it's not all too sound of mind to argue with one of the men in this fort. Least of all the elites like Antonio."

"I assume you won." Fatima stated with a giggle.

"Oh I should think so," Sandy replied, grinning faintly as she pulled herself into a sitting position. Her right shoulder and elbow were still stiff and hard of moving, but they no longer screamed with pain.

"Altair has left before dawn to hunt for Jamal," Fatima stated as if making a casual observation, but Sandy caught the odd note in her tone.

"Antonio told me he would," Sandy lied, keeping up the charade. It was best for both of them if Fatima didn't know that she had gotten the talk from the man himself hours previous.

The younger girl looked up, lowering her needle and the gray tunic she had been darning, "You're worried for him," she stated.

"A little, yes," Sandy replied, if only slightly too wistfully than she would have liked to sound.

Fatima smiled softly and went back to her work, leaving Sandy wondering what was on her friend's mind at this time. Could she be suspecting something? Sandy hoped that she was not about to be angry with her. Sandy didn't need her thinking there was more between Altair and her than there really was. She didn't need the whole kitchen staff to get the wrong idea; it might make her stay here difficult.

"Say Fatima, where is Antonio?" she asked, hoping that if she showed interest in any other man then maybe Fatima would be convinced off her musings, whatever they were.

"Probably making a nuisance of himself in the kitchens."

Sandy shook her head and smiled, he was indeed a very strange man. Warm, flirtatious at times, paternal at others, but when dealing with his colleagues he had quite the sharp tongue, his low blow aimed at Altair had been proof of that. She got to her feet and moved about the room slowly, getting back the feel of her legs and balancing. Last night it had been difficult, but now it seemed like her body was slowly becoming her own again.

* * *

Altair arrived in Damascus a little after nightfall. The city was nearly invisible in the darkness with only the small sentry fires alight showing him the gate. Talimar was no longer able to run, pushed to the brink of exhaustion the horse moved towards the gate at a slow trot. This suited Altair fine, this way he wouldn't draw much attention to himself. He shed his swords, putting them unto Talimar's saddle, and stowed the knives in the hidden sheathes on the strap work. It was great bother entering the city at night, but well worth it in the end, with fewer crowds to contend with.

If he were Jamal, he would've posted an ally at the gate to watch for the arrival of pursuit. So arriving at night gave him the best opportunity to avoid being spotted by any such sentry. He didn't need Jamal tipped off to his arrival; a cornered animal became unpredictable and twice as dangerous, and he needed to bring the fool back alive. It would've been so much simpler to find him and finish him where he stood, but Al Mualim had wanted him brought back alive, orders were orders.

Approaching the gates he took stock of the guards, of the eight only three were probably entirely aware of what was happening. The other five seemed to him like they were half-asleep at their posts already. Stopping a hundred yards in front of the gate, Altair dismounted and swung the reins over Talimar's head so he could lead the stallion past the gates, patting him on the neck as a means of encouragement and praise for enduring the day's ride.

The guards on the outside of the gate watched him closely, but did not interfere with his passage. The guards inside had much the same reaction. They were easily fooled into thinking he was a messenger, or indeed a scholar, simply by stowing his weapons out of reach, as if just for show and not use.

He led his horse to the stables just beyond the gate; retrieving his weapons as soon as he was out of sight from the gates. The stables were just past the city gates and by now mostly quiet. The attendant boy jumped to his feet upon seeing him approach. Altair led Talimar over to him and placed the horse's reins in the boy's hands already digging into his pouch for the payment before the boy could extend his hand for it. Altair gave the boy twice the fare and spared him a glance that caused the boy to stiffen, "Feed him your best hay and give him lots of water."

"Yes sir!" the boy replied with a bow. "Pleasure doing business with you, sir." He then dug into the small bag hanging on his belt and produced a wooden token bearing a number and emblem on it.

Altair took the token and stowed it away as he watched the stable hand pull Talimar inside. Finally he turned away and proceeded to the bureau by taking the shortest way he knew via the rooftops. He knew that the dispatched homing pigeon should have beaten him to Damascus, so when he jumped down through the gap in the latticework he wasn't surprised that the door was open and there was a flickering light spilling from inside the bureau into the small walled yard. He didn't waste any time stepping into the house.

"Ah! Altair! Welcome, welcome!" the Rafiq greeted, exuberant as ever. "Your arrival almost beat the carrier pigeon. Now what is this I hear about Jamal being traitor?"

"It's not an error, Al Mualim ordered me to catch him and bring him back to Masyaf."

"I'm surprised, and a little bothered. Had only the pigeon arrived sooner."

Altair noticed the expression on the rafiq's face, "Has he been here?" he asked.

"Indeed he had, and he left just an hour before the pigeon arrived. He had seemed agitated and I was foolish enough to buy his excuse of family troubles."

"So he is in the city?" Altair demanded, putting a hand on the large table at which the rafiq sat with his half-finished pottery.

"Probably not for long. He wouldn't speak of what he was up to, but he did ask me to forestall anyone seeking him. He said that he left without permission and would… _appreciate_ my assistance. I refused of course; after all, doing so does not seem natural. Al Mualim would never refuse us leave for family troubles. That's when Jamal left, more agitated than before."

"Well enough, I will have no trouble finding him in the city if you tell which district to search."

"I would imagine he'd be hiding in the poor district about where his family lives, but I would not look for him with them. No, he hadn't been on the best of terms with his father since he joined the brotherhood. I'm sorry, I do not know much else."

"It's a start," Altair turned around, and moved to the doorway. In the back of his mind he knew that it was an awful little information, too little. The poor district was large and he very much doubted that Jamal would be foolish enough to continue wearing the white and reds of the brotherhood, but he would still be armed. He could very well be any beggar or peddler on the street. One moment of inattentiveness and the cowardly fool could very well get a drop on him. He'd have to pay close attention to everyone. As annoyingly problematic as the search looked to be, and Altair loved nothing more than a decent challenge and he got very few of them because his skills were so above everyone else's. He looked foreword to this slight refreshment.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing Much

**Director's Notes:**

What a twist! I wanted to use that line, so pardon me please. The next couple of chapters will have a 'sliding point of view' chronicling the time the dynamic duo is apart, but there will be some character development across all fronts. So stick around for the next exciting chapter of Chaos Theory!


	8. Twisted Games, Part I

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Well this is chapter 8. Thank you everyone for your lovely reviews, I love reviews, they make me feel so darn warm and fuzzy inside. I hope you enjoy this chapter, it was a little hard to write in spots, but I did my best.

_**

* * *

Chapter VIII**_: _Twisted Games, Part I_

The days dragged for Sandy. The first two after Altair's departure she had been almost wholly bed ridden. It took that long for her body to fix itself after the minor concussion and she absolutely hated feeling infirm. Her vision was the last thing to return to norm, though it had been improving by the hour since she woke up that afternoon with Fatima watching over her. Now on the third day she was glad that she could see well enough again, being nearsighted had not been fun at all.

It didn't take her long to realize that despite her staying in Altair's quarters, as he had not so subtly hinted, the responsibility of keeping an eye on her fell to Antonio. The man protested that it was because he was on the injured list, hence unable to do missions, and had nothing better to do than hover around her almost the entire waking day, but her a gut feeling that he was assigned this mission he _could_ do with his arm in a sling.

Just after breakfast Sandy perched herself on top a stack of crate-like boxes in the courtyard. Having little to do herself she watched some of the junior initiates spar in the rink, supervised by the master of arms. In the process she took mental notes on swordsmanship. Not to wield a blade herself, but to know what to expect from others who did and be ready in the event of an emergency. Then she heard the familiar double clink of Antonio approaching.

"Morning _Tony_," she uttered quietly, turning her head to give the man a smile. It was a slight change; she had decided to shorten his name because his full name was a mouthful at four syllables. Of course, that was not counting his two surnames, which made his full name even more unwieldy. She was glad that he didn't seem to mind the nickname; in fact, he beamed whenever she used the short form.

"How are you today, _senorita_?" he asked, easing into a sitting position next to her, stretching out his long legs and leaning back on the wall of the fort.

"Back to norm, but now that my brain is not all fogged up it won't quiet down, something has been nagging me. I'm wondering why Jamal came after me."

"He didn't tell you?" Antonio asked.

"He may have- I just can't remember anything of the seconds after my head hit the wall and the blackness- even the things of the last hour before the event are a little fuzzy. I didn't even know it was you who found me until you told me."

Antonio stared out unto the rink, but his gaze was unfocused, as if unseeing the sparring. He was clearly buried in thought, so Sandy quietly watched him for a long moment, wondering what he was thinking so hard about. Suddenly she noted his fist clench and his gaze flicked back to her.

"Memories, _senorita_." He stated.

"What about them?" Sandy wondered.

"I remembered something he said to _me_ in that hallway. I'm pretty sure he was convinced that the hit would kill you, and when I demanded he said he was exposing a jinni, an evil spirit. _Madre de Dios_! I should've remembered this sooner!"

Sandy stared at him without blinking as the gears in her head began to rev, already evaluating the worth of this piece of information. Drawing on her meager well of CSI-given investigative skills, her mind told her that the piece of was important. "Do you think that has something to do with his reason for coming after me?" she asked.

"It sounded like the ravings of a madman to me at the time, but now-" Antonio replied.

"I think you may have uncovered something and I wish you would've told me sooner. We're going to have to find out, find someone who is-" she paused and suddenly snapped her fingers, realizing she knew just the right person to ask. "Faisal! He'd know!"

"He'd be apt to lie," Antonio stated.

"Maybe, and maybe not. We won't know until we try. Where is he?"

"Probably in the trainee quarters, I heard rumors that his training was suspended due to Jamal's actions."

Sandy got to her feet, standing over the elite assassin as she spoke, "We're going to find him and I will need your help. He may lie to me, but if we play him right he won't lie to both of us. If he won't tell us what we want to know, he still probably knows Jamal's associates and friends. We could shake them down, and if we get enough information- The game is afoot, Antonio!" She turned to walk off, but then paused, realizing that she didn't know where the trainee quarters were. In her overly eager pep she failed to realize that she needed Antonio's help in more than just playing a game of good cop, bad cop on Faisal, she actually needed him in the capacity of a guide. She glanced back, unsure of how to approach the matter.

Antonio got to his feet and put his hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him, noting his roguishly mischievous smile. She knew then that he realized the predicament she was in but didn't comment on it; instead he simply nudged her along into the fort. Sandy followed calmly, memorizing this path for any future use.

The novices were housed at the far side on the highest floors where they would have to climb multiple staircases to access their dormitories. To Sandy it seemed almost punishing, but it made sense that when moving up in life, the assassins got to move down floors, given the lack of elevators.

They found Faisal in the dormitories as Antonio had predicted. The dorm was similar to the infirmary in that it was a large, albeit low-ceilinged chamber filled with the none-too-comfortable looking cots belonging to at least thirty boys. Each cot had a visible wooden chest at its feet, for the meager possessions each boy had. Faisal sat on one such cot, still clad in his gray tunic, and busy sharpening his training dagger. Sandy was wary of approaching him despite the fact that he was alone.

"Morning," she started.

The boy looked up sharply, and then jumped to his feet seeing her and the elite assassin behind her. "You! Master Antonio! What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I have some questions I need to ask of you, Faisal. It concerns your former teacher, I figure you probably know him better than anyone."

"Not really, he had never treated me as more than just a charge." Faisal replied, sitting back down on his cot. His tone was distanced, as if the surprise had been genuine, but now he was back to his normal self.

"Then do you know of someone who does know Jamal well?" Antonio asked.

Faisal spared the elite assassin a wary glance and then stuck his knife into its sheath at his side. "There is one other, another assassin. I do not know his name; I only know that he wears the gray hood of a regular. He also has a big scar on his right cheek, you can't miss it."

"Do you know who that is?" Sandy asked, glancing back at Antonio.

"I think I do, but I too do not know his name."

"What do you wish to know about Jamal?" Faisal wondered, sounding vaguely interested now.

"I'm trying to find out why he went after me. He had spoken of me being a jinni, and I'm trying to find out if it's just superstition or more."

"Well then, I can help," Faisal got to his feet again. "I can recognize the man you want if I see him. So if you allow me to tag along with you-"

"Alright then, come." Sandy smiled.

"You better not be lying Faisal, or having no mentor will be the least of your worries," Antonio warned.

"I have no reason to lie," Faisal replied, his voice rising ever so slightly.

Sandy led the company of three as they walked back to the courtyard where they could openly observe the comings and goings of the fort. Given that the man they sought was a regular it meant that he was still refining his skills, and could probably be found on the sparring or the training grounds when not out on a mission.

As they sat on the same crates as before and watched, Sandy began to notice the annoyance Antonio seemed to develop around Faisal. She couldn't say that the elite hated the trainee, but he clearly didn't like his presence. The two broke into an argument within ten minutes. She watched them with great, but hidden amusement as they slung jibes at each other almost as a pair of much spaced out siblings, it was even funnier given that Antonio was over fifteen years Faisal's senior. The argument ended when the Spaniard slung some sort of Spanish insult she didn't understand at Faisal. The boy had opened his mouth to retort, probably simply because he knew he had been insulted, but his eyes caught something and forgetting Antonio for a moment he suddenly shot up to his feet.

"That's him over there, by the gate!"

* * *

The search proved agonizingly slow for Altair and it led nowhere for two whole days. He knew he could not go about asking random people about Jamal indiscriminately as anyone could be his comrade. On the second day he thought he had glimpsed the man in the poor district's souk, but upon pursuing him he lost visual for probably less than five seconds, but that had been enough and the man gave him a slip in the crowd. Now on the third day the chase had lost its thrill and was an annoyance at best. Altair loathed being toyed with, precisely what Jamal was apparently set on doing. The traitor would eventually discover that he had tested the patience of the wrong man.

Passing into the middle district where most of the merchants and craftsmen had their workshops, on his way back to the bureau, Altair spotted a horse and mule auction in one of the squares. What caught his attention was the beast being shown as the pick of the lot. Compared to the other ill-fed, almost emaciated rabble on sale, this steed was noticeably well nourish and well bred. It was a bay Arabian with proud carriage and attitude that stood out among the other beasts. In the midday sun its coat shone with well-groomed luster as the horse continued to shift about, stretching its tether.

Altair drew near just as the merchant was reaching for the horse's mouth to show the prospective buyers the quality of the beast. The bay stallion suddenly stepped back, stretching taut the rope that held it in place, stomping its hooves in protest, which on the stone paving of the square rang with the sound of shoes. The merchant grabbed the rope and tried to pull the horse back, but the beast attempted to rear, whinnying frenziedly, swinging its head and tail back and forth in protest. Some of the merchant's assistants attempted to calm the beast but it would not have it, instead it continued to pull on its rope repeatedly. The crowd of prospective buyers broke into frenzied whispering among themselves at the spectacle, comments of an uncontrollable horse flying undisguised.

On a whim, Altair let out a whistling cue that the horses of Masyaf were trained to respond to. The stallion stilled instantly, its ears pivoting in his direction and its dark eyes following. That was all the proof Altair needed, the beast was of Masyaf's stables. Probably stolen by Jamal and then sold for profit as it could easily fetch an exceptional price.

Altair knew that he had to talk to the merchant, but not this time of day in the middle of the auctions. He would further notify the rafiq that one of the brotherhood's valuable steeds was on sale. The beast would be claimed stolen and repossessed from the merchant with the return of his initial investment. The merchant would not argue with the rafiq when one or two of the brotherhood flanked him.

Altair spent the rest of the day in contemplation of why Jamal would just sell the beast, what would he need the money for. By early evening, he drifted back to the auction grounds where the horse merchant was just getting ready to close shop for the day. Some of the animals he had earlier had been sold, mostly the hardy mules and a few of the better looking horses. With the crowd gone, Altair could talk to the man without arousing too much suspicion. As he approached the bay stallion still tethered to the post, the beast recognized him instantly as familiar and moved closer as far as its rope would allow it. He placed a hand on its neck and patted it.

"You sir! You have the eye for quality!" The merchant called. "That is a very spirited beast, but the best I have. He would be a fine addition to any stable, and sire many a good foal."

"I'm interested in where you obtained him," Altair replied. "Quite possibly interested in buying more than one like him." Let the man think he was a horse breeder or merchant himself.

"You indeed do have a keen eye for potential my friend! Unfortunately he is the only one I have," the merchant shook his head. "A man approached me the other day, seeking to trade that wild thing for one of my lesser beasts and the difference in price. He drove a hard bargain, but I would have to be a fool to give up on a deal such as this. Just look at that coat and the beast's pride-"

"And he took one of your lesser beasts?" Altair asked.

"Indeed," the merchant replied.

Altair almost smiled at this, the merchant had been an awful lot of help in his own way. Jamal meant to travel, the trade down of the horse for money meant that he intended to go quite a distance and needed road money. There was also the possibility that the horse had proven to be too much for Jamal to handle, some of Masyaf's stallions were known for their wild spirit, normally tempered only by the skills of their riders.

"We can discuss the beast's price, and since it seems to like you so much I'm willing to negotiate."

"I do not have money on me, but I will send someone to discuss the terms. I trust you will be forthright with them."

"Of course! Of course!" the merchant beamed, already rubbing his hands together at the mere hint that there would be negotiations.

Altair spared the horse a final look before he walked away, hooking around a corner out of the merchant's sight before he climbed unto the rooftops and made his way back to the bureau.

When he stepped through the door into the bureau house he noticed the rafiq was seated at his crafting table, fast at work and engrossed with glazing his latest creation, assisted by no less than fifteen candles.

"I'm back," Altair stated.

The rafiq's head shot up and he shot to his feet, "Welcome back! Pardon me, I was busy-"

"It's alright rafiq," Altair stated.

"How did your search go?" the rafiq asked, setting down his brush.

"Somewhat productive, I found the beast Jamal stole from Masyaf, one of the horse merchants in the middle district has it. I told him I would send someone to negotiate the beast's price. Jamal traded for a different horse, he means to travel. I will have to speed up the search."

"That's problematic, my men have been unable to find him either. As for the horse I will indeed send someone to retrieve it in the morning." The proprietor moved across the room to the other work desk, where he made a note of the task in his records. It was then he saw something on the desk that made him jump. He raised the rolled up parchment and turned to Altair, "this letter arrived for you. I did not open it."

Altair took the rolled parchment and untied the string that held it shut, opening the letter. He was curious as to who would know where to find him, and what more would know where to send this letter. There were only a few people who would and most of them would not send an addressed letter that the rafiq would not read. This implied some secrecy that had nothing with his job. The scrawl within the letter was excessively neat, as if some care went into writing the letter, but with each word that he read Altair became angrier and angrier.

"It's from Jamal!" he stated, laying the letter on the desk. "Feel free to read it," Altair turned around and left for the kitchen where he could grab a wineskin to quench his thirst. He returned to the room with the water in tow, the look on the Rafiq's face was one of utter surprise.

"He's challenging you to follow him to Jerusalem? Is he… insane?"

"He means to play this idiotic game a while longer. Now I know why I have been picking up traces of him, he thinks he can tire me by taunting me. He is wrong, once I get my hands on him-" Altair stopped, what would he do? Kill the man? He couldn't, his orders stood to bring Jamal back to Masyaf alive, but would it really matter if he died in the middle of capture? Certainly, his death would make the return to Masyaf a lot less bothersome.

"Do not be rash, brother," the rafiq warned. "But I understand how you feel, why… if I was in your shoes I'd want to kill him where I found him myself. He tarnished the honor of the brotherhood with his cowardice, _and_ dishonored himself by attacking a woman. You'll be happy to know the lady is recovering well."

Altair paused mid-drink, sparing the rafiq an odd look, wondering what he was inferring from whatever source that told him these things.

"Really now, did you expect me not to inquire into this matter from my friends at home? What I discovered surprised me, especially the fact that this lady in question has been nearly an inseparable companion of yours prior to the attack," the rafiq went on, noticeably proud of himself. "I'd very much like to meet her one day, just to see if the things I've been hearing are true."

"It is not like that," Altair stated.

"No need to deny the obvious my friend!" the rafiq was smiling now. "Even the greatest-"

Altair unleashed the full power of his stare upon the rafiq, stopping him cold. With each passing second he liked the direction of the man's deductions less and less. There was nothing of the sort between him and the woman; she was merely a temporary charge. Probably as soon as she proved her prediction right and proved that she was not a spy of any kind, she would leave and he'd be done with her.

Given the date and the nature of her prediction, by the time he got back to Masyaf odds were she'd be gone already, or hanging on Antonio. Few women could resist the lout for long while in his constant presence. Furthermore, she was of the type who always felt excessively grateful to people who helped her in any way, quick to claim her life was saved, and for once her life _was_ saved, there was no point in arguing semantics.

"I know that look, please do not be planning my death." The rafiq chuckled at his own joke, jarring Altair from his thoughts. "Now why would Jamal run to Jerusalem? Brother Malik's men are even better than mine at locating people." He went on, changing the subject back to the matter at hand.

"He probably thinks Malik would be willing to do the one thing that you denied him." Altair replied.

"Then he is insane _and_ a fool."

"Evidently. Malik will not help him, but there may be other reasons why he is taking the risk. Jerusalem is bigger than Damascus, and the site of many converging trade routes, he'll be able to choose any one caravan to travel with."

"Then why the letter?"

"He wants to prove his greatness by avoiding me to the end. For that, he can't have me thinking he's still in Damascus. That arrogance will be his downfall, I will find him, with or without Malik's assistance."

"You seem to have it all figured out. When will you be departing?" the rafiq asked.

Altair paused, there was the vague possibility that the letter was also a decoy meant to lure him from Damascus and to Jerusalem, to waste his time so that Jamal could vanish from Damascus elsewhere. However his instinct told him that Jamal would not be that sneaky, if he said he departed for Jerusalem, he probably had. The barest sighting the day before had probably not been entirely accidental.

He watched as the rafiq wrote a letter that he would send to Malik, alerting him to of Jamal's imminent arrival, and Altair's own arrival to follow. Altair knew exactly the kind of storm this would raise with Malik and some part of him did not want to face it. He was not afraid of Malik, but he did not want his time wasted on a lecture, and without a doubt there would be a lecture. Malik knew Cassandra and had been on friendly terms with her. He was also all too quick to defend those he considered innocent and slighted.

"I will depart tomorrow morning," Altair suddenly stated. There was no use in trying to avoid the matter. Maybe the two days it would take him to travel would give Malik enough time to calm down and lose most of the venom that the letter would evoke. Perhaps if luck were on his side, he would arrive to find Jamal chained to some wooden beam in the bureau, ready to be taken to Masyaf. Altair wouldn't put it past Malik to take his defensive nature to the odd extreme and send out his men to scour the city immediately after he received the letter. It would be the most favorable of the possible outcomes and the one that he would prefer at this point. He had no desire to be chasing the Jamal's ghost around a large city like Jerusalem.

* * *

Faisal's less than subtle method of pointing out the man in question had resulted in an hour-long chase around Masyaf village. In the end, they did find their target when Faisal remembered that Jamal was friendly with the town's basket weaver. On a hunch, they went to check if there was a mutual friendship and hit pay dirt; they found the assassin in the weaver's home.

Currently he was seated on a chair in the middle of the house's front room, eyeing the three of them like a deer in the headlights. Antonio stood in the doorway, barring his exit, as Sandy paced in front of him. Antonio had gone at length to divest the man of his weapons, so he would pose her no threat, and it was Faisal who was currently the keeper of the arms.

"Why run?" Sandy asked, pausing in the middle of her pacing.

The assassin remained quiet, looking into her face.

"Answer," Antonio commanded.

"I have done nothing wrong, Jamal's actions were his alone!" the man stated, glancing first to Antonio and then to her, and then finally to Faisal, who stood by the window. "What has _he_ been telling you?"

Sandy followed his line of sight and noted his chilled, hateful gaze aimed at Faisal, and it clicked in her mind. The man was convinced that Faisal had said something about him doing something and he rightfully on pins and needles for it. She decided to take the good cop approach in this instance, since Antonio seemed to lapse into the role of the bad cop almost naturally.

"Faisal just pointed you out, he had not said anything else. I just need some answers to my questions, nothing more."

"Ask then!" the assassin replied.

"I assume that since you are friends, you would know Jamal well enough. I'm trying to discover why he came after me."

"Ah that. Yes, he did talk to me." The assassin relaxed in his seat, his shoulders dropped and his whole frame seemed to slouch in his seat. "It's not you. That is… you're not his main goal. For as long as I had known him, Jamal had this problem with Altair, he was always envious of the ranks Altair attained so quickly. That day in the rink, it must've boiled over."

"And yet he calls me a jinni," Sandy noted.

"Jamal thinks both of you are."

Sandy faltered in her pacing, leveling a searching gaze upon the man. Was he lying? Because if he wasn't, then this might as well be the key to understanding Jamal's true motive, and CSI had taught her that motive was everything. The key to every mystery laid in the motive.

"Why?" she asked.

"He's convinced that no mortal man can be as skilled as Altair, convinced that there are dark forces at work, and you- he's convinced that no woman should have skill with a blade on any level, least of all enough to beat- well-" he stopped, his eyes flicking over to Faisal.

"Ah yes," Sandy nodded her head. _Typical sexism_, she thought coolly. She was glad that of the assassins, relatively few seemed to have that idiotic misconception that just because she was a woman she was naturally inferior. Few, but apparently not all were so well educated. "Then why go after me if Altair was his main concern?"

The assassin's eyes wandered about the room, and Sandy noted it. "You were the first step in exposing both. Just the less dangerous target."

"And you didn't try to stop him?" Antonio boomed, suddenly angry.

"I tried! I told him not to be rash, but he wouldn't listen!"

"I'm not blaming you," Sandy stated calmly, to dissolve the tension in the room. The assassin's gaze snapped back to her, the expression on his face one of surprise. He stared at her for a long moment and Sandy offered him a small encouraging smile as a way of getting him to relax.

"You hold no anger towards Jamal either, do you?" he asked.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but… you could say I'm _lenient_. Besides, the worst I can do to him probably wouldn't be near as bad as anything Altair is capable of."

"Indeed, if Altair catches up to him-" the assassin muttered as if to himself, momentarily lost in his own dark thoughts and visions. "Given that Jamal thinks that Altair had brought you here to be his- well-" he looked back sharply, as if suddenly aware that he had said something he shouldn't have.

Sandy's eyebrow rose as the man cut himself off again.

"His what?" Antonio demanded.

The assassin looked at Antonio over her shoulder, practically through her when he spoke. "You have to agree, Altair suddenly bringing a woman among us did look a little suspicious. Jamal thinks that he is covering up an affair."

"An _affair_?" Sandy repeated in disbelief. Was the world insane? Was just hanging around a man a sign and proof of some secret tryst? How many others were convinced of this nonsense? She folded her arms and did her absolute best not to feel righteously angry. "I think you gave me what I want to know. This revelation is enough for me to understand a couple of things. Thank you for your help," She smiled at the man in a genuine way.

"I am free to go?"

"Yes, Tony?" Sandy glanced at the Spaniard by the door. He frowned, but grudgingly moved out of the way. The assassin got to his feet and retrieved his weapons from Faisal before he left. Sandy meanwhile folded her arms, placing her hands on her elbows as she thought of what she had just learned, pacing across the room.

"Did you truly get all you need?" Antonio asked as soon as the man was gone. "One hour of tracking him, and-"

Sandy glanced at Antonio sharply, silencing him instantly. "He gave me more than he probably realized, Tony. I think I have the picture now, and I'm afraid Altair is off on a wild goose chase."

"A wild goose chase?" Antonio asked.

Sandy cursed, was that too modern an expression? "Hopeless quest," she added.

"How come?" Faisal wondered, approaching so he could stand between them.

"I will not explain here, come," she exited the house and began up the path towards the fortress, flashing the confused basket-weaver a smile as a way of apology as she went. Antonio and Faisal fell in step beside her, with Faisal between her and the older assassin. It was then that Sandy decided to explain on the walk.

"Reason with me here for a moment. Supposing you're a person who thinks the man you envy is an unholy spirit. Then suddenly he brings around a woman, naturally a supposition of an affair would be a bygone conclusion, no matter how _utterly_ preposterous." She took a breath, pausing for a split of a second before lapsing back into her explanation. "Then she goes around and beats your star pupil. Faisal, you probably didn't tell him that Altair pretty much punted me into that rink because you were angry."

The boy simply shook his head, watching her instead of his footing with a pair of widened eyes.

"Now here's what I suppose. Jamal meant to expose us both as jinni, preposterous yes, but to a madman preposterous is logical. I was the weaker of the two targets; he probably meant to do away with me without being caught just yet. That's where the plan went horribly wrong, Antonio, you interrupted him and he escaped knowing that his chance of doing this deed without being found out was dashed."

"Then how does this relate to Master Altair?" Faisal wondered.

"Give me a moment here, I'll get to that. The key is something Antonio remembered from their fight in that hallway. Jamal spoke to him, and he was convinced that the hit I received would kill me." Sandy glanced at Antonio, noting his straightened, stiffened shoulders.

"In other words, brat, by his assumption that _senorita_ Cassandra is Altair's lover, he would naturally assume that once she is dead, Altair would come after him bent on revenge."

"Precisely! By his assumptions he fears whatever wrath he incurred, and he fears the supposed _inhuman_ side." Sandy finished. Faisal's expression was one of incredulous understanding, the facts probably clicked in his mind, but he didn't want to believe them. Sandy smiled at the boy and went on. "The goose chase comes into the part where Jamal will probably want to avoid Altair at all costs, he will do anything in his power to waylay Altair. I very much doubt that he will be caught all too easily, he will plan and scheme his moves carefully. Without this knowledge we uncovered, I'm afraid Altair will lack the crucial piece of this riddle, the understanding of his target."

"We must tell the master! A letter should be sent to Damascus!" Antonio stated.

"I don't know Tony, all of this could just be wild conjecture. What if I'm wrong?" Sandy asked. "I'd hate to end up helping Jamal in reading too much into this."

"I think that Master Altair has a right to know regardless, let him judge if this information is worth anything," Faisal offered.

Sandy shook her head, she knew Faisal was right, but there was something Antonio and Faisal did not know, the nature of her conversation with Altair that night in the infirmary before he departed. Without a doubt, Altair took this personally, just not the way Jamal thought he would. Revenge was a part of the equation, but she knew it had nothing to do with her sensibilities being avenged. A bigger factor was pride; it was Altair's perfectionism that was being avenged. If she stuck her nose in this manner and tried to help him, Altair would not be thankful for her meddling. She didn't want to incur his wrath, especially now.

How was she to explain this part to these two without revealing what else she knew? Somehow, the situation was just too twisted for her liking, and she partly wished she had not stuck her nose into it to begin with. This was the kind of thing where ignorance would have been a welcomed bliss.

"For once I agree with Faisal, concealing this would probably do more harm than good if this information is false. I was there myself, you have presented your reasoning to me and I agree with it," Antonio spoke, his tone changing. Gone was the warmth, replaced by a cool business-like tone.

Sandy decided that this was probably Antonio's business façade. He was an experienced assassin, so maybe he saw things a little different from her. "You're right of course," she mumbled quietly, fidgeting as they passed the gate of the fort. There was just one last thing standing in the way now, her own nerves. Last time she had been before the master, she had all but had a panic attack. This time, she'd have the undivided attention, could she even talk in this situation? It was stupid and irrational; she knew that Antonio would probably follow her up there, but still.

"Can you give me a day to think of matters? To contemplate this further?" she asked.

"Time is of the essence, _senorita_."

"I understand," Sandy stated calmly. She understood that simply too well, but foremost she did not want Faisal to be present when she admitted to Antonio of her own irrational fear of the fortress' master. The fifteen-year old would probably laugh himself silly if he knew. There was nothing worse than getting justified laughter from a person seven years your junior, especially when he then got the right to feel superior. There was also the matter that Antonio could not know of the full reason why she was on pins and needles at the mere mention of the master.

She stopped by the entrance fortress doors, hesitant to enter its confines just yet. Today was just the twenty-fifth, another two and a half weeks before Acre was set to surrender or fall, her probation still hung over her head like the very sharp blade of a very well oiled guillotine.

"Faisal, this is the part where you let adults talk, scamper off." Antonio ordered suddenly.

"I'm not a child!" Faisal protested.

Sandy stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket, no longer paying attention to what was going on around her. Thinking of the date brought back another irrational fear, what would happen if Acre did not fall? She knew that a day or so either way probably wouldn't matter, but what if the date was off by a week or more? There was no one in the fortress she could confide to, and even if Altair had been here she couldn't share this irrational fear with him. He probably would not understand, or worse yet, he would take it the wrong way. She palmed her cell phone, playing with it, as if just holding it in her hand could slow or stop time.

Sandy decided that even if he couldn't help, Altair's presence would've been soothing to her nerves. It was hard to be wound up in his presence; he just exuded this aura of perfect calmness, like nothing could affect or bother him in any way. He was so much stronger compared her, both physically and mentally. He could remain perfectly calm, even aloof, living day to day in this time. He was almost like an unmovable rock in the middle of a stormy sea. It was a quality she envied, a quality she wished she had at this moment, it was an anchor point that she needed.

She turned and glanced to the southeast, towards where she knew Damascus lay. Wondering what was happening over there, hoping the Altair was having better luck than she thought, hoping that she was wrong and that he caught Jamal already. She was not petty enough to hate being proven wrong; she would love nothing more in this case than to be proven wrong.

After a moment, she tore her gaze away and had to kick herself mentally for letting her thoughts wander to such dark regions of fear. _Snap the hell out of it. What are you? A clingy girlfriend? You can pull through_. Worrying never made anything better, she just needed to have faith and not think about it. After all, the victors wrote history, and western accounts had spoken of early mid-July as the fall of Acre. Why would they lie in such a detail?

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Madre de Dios: Spanish for 'Mother of God', used in the same capacity of the modern 'holy shit!'

The game is afoot: Another Sherlock Holmes quote, one of his most famous ones, naturally Sandy changed it a little to fit her own usage.

**Director's Notes:**

This chapter was almost not ready in time because I kept debating the finer points of it. It's the beginning of a couple important developments that will follow, and I felt the need to get it absolutely right.


	9. Twisted Games, Part II

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Chapter 9, the second part of the twisted games two-part. Character development abounds.

_**

* * *

Chapter IX**_: _Twisted Games, Part II_

Morning on the twenty-sixth of June dawned hot and bright, Sandy woke almost more tired than when she had gone to sleep. Her cell phone lay under her pillow and she checked the date on it almost compulsively. By now she could no longer deny the impossibility happening there. The device was in fact getting its energy from somewhere. It wasn't the newest model, she had it for three years now, and the battery normally didn't last five days, never mind this long. However, here it was more than two weeks and still full and apparently charging. It was just one more layer of the mystery that she had somehow traveled back in time, but it was a mystery she very much doubted she could piece together.

Instead, she chose to worry more about the matters presently at hand. She had spent the evening sitting by the windowsill in the dark, ruminating and running the facts over and over through her head, checking and double-checking her own reasoning, but in the end she came up to the same conclusions each time. She had sought any oversight, any too wild a conjecture, and in the end of the evening she had a case even more solid than before. She was ninety-nine percent positive that she had inferred things right; her brain was further in agreement with her gut.

She knew she had to get the information out, she had realized that sitting in the dark the previous evening. Odds were that if Altair knew that she had this information, and didn't tell him, he'd be angrier than if she simply stuck her nose into matters. The matter at hand had as much interest to her as it did to him; it was her right to stick her nose into it, he'd have to deal with that.

Ultimately, however, assuring herself like that still did not make her nerves any easier to control; she had never been a good public speaker. Even in school presentations had been a pain in the posterior that she avoided in all the possible ways, even going as far as to pretend she lost her voice once or twice. She had only done them only when it came down to presentations that replaced exams, those unavoidable kinds. However, those did nothing to prepare her for _this_ presentation -if the word could be used. This instance carried more weight than anything she had ever done in high school.

She changed from her gray sleeping tunic into her clothing, and upon checking the time once again decided it was almost time for breakfast. Stepping out the door to Altair's quarters she let the door click silently behind her, putting the primitive key in the equally primitive locking mechanism and jerking it. The key then found its hiding spot in the front pocket of her jeans.

She really didn't need the key to open that lock, the keyhole was large enough that on the right time of day one could see a tiny beam of sunlight streaming right through it. Just about any sufficiently long pick could depress the pins inside to release the lock. To her, one so used to picking much smaller, more complex locks, the large medieval mechanism was nothing short of a joke. The pins were bigger and there were less of them, three at best to the modern convention of five or six, and the alignment required was less precise. Sandy was pretty sure that if she wanted to get into somewhere, there wasn't a lock in the twelfth century that could stop her. Nevertheless, there was a quaint charm in the elegant simplicity of the medieval design, in all its oversized clunky glory.

She arrived in the grand hall and spotted Antonio who was seating in his new usual spot, on the right of her preferred seat, which would've been on Altair's right. She had actually grown fond of that place, and since no one seemed to be complaining about it, she stuck around here.

"Morning, Tony," she greeted the man.

"Good morning, _senorita_. Was your sleep restful?"

"Oh I wish. I had too much on my mind to sleep. But I did decide that the information will have to be dispatched; there is no other way. Altair has to know." Sandy replied, sitting down.

"Then I shall accompany you to the master's library," Antonio offered.

"Thank you, I'll appreciate that," Sandy smiled at him. _You don't know how much I appreciate that_ she wanted to add. Scanning the hall she spotted Faisal seated at the very corner of the trainee table, as close to the head table as he was allowed to be. He inclined his head ever so slightly in greeting and Sandy flashed him a quick smile.

One of the maids brought her breakfast and Sandy dug into it, though truthfully she would have preferred to meet the master on an empty stomach. However, if she missed mealtime now, she wouldn't have a meal until about two in the afternoon, and her stomach would be ravenous by then. _Maybe the rule should be appended, no talking to intimidating assassin bosses for an hour after food either_, she thought.

After breakfast was done, she was quick to escape the great hall in favor of the entry hall where she paced, trying to silently pep herself into going up to and doing what she knew she had to do. She noted Antonio watching her with a bemused expression on his face, but surprisingly enough he remained silent until she stopped cold and looked at him squarely.

"I'm being a silly, no?" she asked.

Antonio neared and placed his hand on her shoulder, "Silly? No. Just human."

"Well thanks Antonio, I guess I need to get over myself. Swallow this nervousness and do it. He'll be angry if I don't." She turned and walked to the stairs, and it was a couple moments before Antonio fell in step behind her. At the foot of the stairs that led to the study, Antonio overtook her and took the stairs up two at a time. Sandy paused for all of a split second, squaring her shoulders and steeling her nerves before she ascended.

The master was seated at his desk, reading through paperwork when Antonio addressed him. "_Senorita_ Cassandra is here, master." He spoke.

The older man looked up and Sandy stepped from behind Antonio, bowing politely with her hands clasped in front of her. "Terribly sorry to interrupt, sir."

"Come foreword, I have been expecting this visit."

Sandy looked up, surprised, and then glanced at Antonio whose gaze averted to the ceiling, as if he found the rafters to be fascinating. It clicked in her head instantly that the man had told the master of her investigation the previous night, and had been merely humoring her in this delay. Somehow, she couldn't rightfully be surprised, he was the elite here, expecting him to keep quiet would've been expecting too much. Anyone else would've probably delivered the information himself, but he had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. She stepped closer to the table, standing on front of it, but still some distance back.

"Now tell me, child, what is this you discovered talking to my men?" the master wondered, somewhat bemused.

Sandy cleared her throat and began to explain, trying her best not to quail because just like the first time she spoke to the master of the fortress, her tongue seemed to grow heavy and sluggish. She answered all questions asked of her as best she could, by keeping her answers as succinct and calm as possible. She discovered that as time went on, each minute that ticked by, the problem of talking was lessening; the stress dissolved away. Finally the master sat back in his chair and gave her a chilling appraising look that could've frozen her blood solid had it not been for the odd sense of accomplishment that countered it with its own type of heat.

"I really do think that Jamal will be difficult to catch without this understanding of his motivation." She finished, wringing her hands together in front of her.

"You witnessed all of this?" the master asked, looking to Antonio.

"My part in the matter is entirely as she described it," the Spaniard replied.

The master turned back to Sandy and got to his feet, "Well child, it would seem that you indeed found something of value. You were right to come foreword with this; however, it would have been better if you had come to me the previous evening. Time is of the essence."

"I am sorry, sir." Sandy bowed her head.

"What's done is done, the slight delay should not pose too much of a problem. The information will be relayed." The master stated. "Now, unless there is more, you are free to go."

"Thank you, sir." Sandy replied.

The master waved his hand, sending the two of them away even as he glanced to one of his aides who stood by the wall some twenty feet away as a silent observer.

Sandy felt Antonio nudge her towards the steps and followed him wordlessly, lapsing into her thoughts. She sincerely hoped that the information and the deductions were true and would be of use to Altair, and if not, then at least not a dead end or a distraction. Often over-thinking was as bad as not thinking enough about something, the mind had a horrible habit of making everything seem scarier and darker the longer one dwelled on it. The possibilities of failure and disappointment had the ability to multiply alarmingly fast when dwelled upon for too long.

At the top of the stairs to the second level Antonio patted her shoulder, drawing her back out of her thoughts and to him, "What now?" he asked.

"I honestly do not know, Antonio. We could snoop around some more, see what else bites, but my gut tells me that we got most of the useful information already gathered. Whatever we find after this will not be as big."

Antonio straightened his back and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. Sandy noted that it was a habit of his; he played with the pommel when he was in thought about something or other.

When they returned to the entry hall, Faisal was there, seated at the base of the stairs, apparently waiting for them. He jumped to his feet as soon as he saw their approach and Sandy could see the expression on his face, the curiosity there was as plain as daylight.

"So did you tell?" he asked.

"Yes," Sandy replied.

"Good! Because if you hadn't, I would no longer respect you."

Antonio cuffed the boy upside the head for his words, sending Faisal stumbling. "Do not speak to the lady like that," the elite ordered in a very annoyed tone that Sandy did not miss. Despite his tone however, she could only laugh, shaking her head at the expression the fifteen year old gave the elite assassin.

"It's okay, really. He can speak his mind, if he says something I don't like, he'll know about it." Sandy stated calmly. It was then that a thought occurred to her that she realized was late in coming, it was so obvious that it almost made her giggle, but instead she simply grinned and put her hand on Faisal's head in a patronizing sort of way. "You two get along so swell that- hell Tony, you might as well train him."

Antonio stopped dead, "Do not jest about that _senorita_."

"Well why-ever the hell not?" Sandy wondered, momentarily ignoring how Faisal simply stepped out from under her hand, she let the appendage drop back to her side.

"I'd sooner drink poison than be trained by him," the youth muttered, earning him another cuff upside the head from Antonio.

"Why not?" Sandy asked again.

"He's- well-"

"Training me would get in the way of _his_ usual daily routine," Faisal stated with a calm tone. "No more bothering the kitchen women, he'd actually have to do something around here."

"You little-" Antonio exclaimed, grabbing for Faisal's tunic, but the fifteen year old dodged him, laughing much like a child that in many ways he still was.

"See? I'm right! I'm right!" he jeered with all the enthusiasm of a younger sibling jostling his elder.

"Come now, _children_. Let's not fight." Sandy stated, trying as hard as she could not to explode into laughter at their antics. Laughing too much still made her head hurt with the tail ends of the concussion. All the other symptoms were gone, but she knew that the headaches would linger for a long while, and at worst, they would linger for the rest of her life.

"Just wait until I have use of my other arm again," Antonio stated, looking Faisal right in the eyes as he did.

Sandy shook her head and sighed, realizing that trying to stop them was apparently useless. "I'm sorry I even suggested that," She murmured.

By late afternoon, Sandy found herself wiling away the hours in the stables, brushing Nyx, trying too hard not to think or let her worries get to her. Antonio, ever the persistent tail, was some distance away, taking the opportunity to check on his own horse.

The black beast was stabled in a reinforced corner box, with the one next to it being empty and swept clean, purposefully left unused. The stallion was quite different from the Arabian beasts around it. It was larger by almost half a hand as Antonio had explained, black as tar, with matching beady eyes. It had a long mane and tail that grew naturally, since as Antonio said, the horse refused to allow shears near it. Its body, and most noticeably its chest, was broader, more barrel-like, and its legs noticeably thicker, ending in powerful hooves that looked like they could trample anything underneath them. The beast displayed a great deal of powerful muscle underneath a brilliantly shining coat. It looked like a warhorse belonging to a knight, just armor short of something straight out of a jousting tournament. The beast was so ferocious that Antonio had forbidden her to draw near it under any circumstance.

When satisfied that Rayo-the name meant Lightning in Spanish- would be content to spend another night in his stall, which was quite possibly too small for a horse of such size, Antonio was at her side and Sandy decided to draw out the time by braiding Nyx's mane.

"Do you think the letter was sent already?" Sandy asked.

"The carrier bird had probably departed hours ago," Antonio replied.

"That's good," Sandy murmured as she used thin pieces of clean flexible straw to tie the braids she made in place. They would probably be undone by the stable hands, or maybe not, but it kept her hands occupied and her mind focused on something other than worries.

"If I may enquire _senorita_," Antonio began, causing Sandy to look up at him. "I've been meaning to ask about the origin of that peculiar brand on your arm."

"It's not a brand, it's a decoration, but it does have a meaning. To be precise it is the mark of my own group of colleagues. Where I come from, we help people in no less surer terms than you and the brotherhood."

"So you received formal training of sorts?" Antonio wondered.

"Of sorts," Sandy echoed.

"What is that you do?"

Sandy turned her head to look the man in the eye, should she tell him? Certainly, Altair knew of her affinity to all things burnable, but did she want to make that common knowledge? Certainly, there was no immediate threat in that, after all, an assassin had no right to hold her fire-setting above her without a great deal of hypocrisy.

"I'm an arson specialist," she stated as calmly as she could.

"Are all your associates arsonists?"

"No, just me. All of us have our own specialties, but we all know a thing or two of defending ourselves and other people. Our leader taught me my knife fighting techniques, and another had taught me basic hand-to-hand self-defense, but my ability to understand fire comes from my father. He was a fire-fighter, that is, one of a couple of groups of specialists in putting out fires."

"Yet you are quite the opposite," Antonio noted.

"My father would understand. He often talked of having to put out the fires in places where the fire would have done much good if allowed to run free. However, the law is the law. He taught me much of how fire behaves and how to predict its actions." To her it made perfect sense, like some fathers taught their kids to throw fastballs and hit home runs, hers had taught her the many moods of fire. Her lack of fear of the flames stemmed from the absolute confidence she had in her knowledge of their tenacity and how to avoid being injured by them.

"And your mother?" Antonio wondered.

Sandy shifted her weight uneasily, pondering what to say to that loaded question she would have preferred to avoid. Odds were that Antonio would not understand the term 'financial advisor', nor would he grasp the fact that a woman held a position that close to money, vast money at times. There was the difference in times that had to be considered, so she just decided to lie about it, it wouldn't really be too big of a lie either, "She was a proper wife in many ways, you know."

"You speak in past tense, are your parents dead?"

"Oh heavens no! My mom and dad are both fine, just divorced, separated. Let's just say they stopped seeing eye-to-eye somewhere along the lines."

"I'm somewhat envious," Antonio stated wistfully. "My father was a sailor, and I was raised to follow his footsteps. Unfortunately, it was never to be. On my first voyage with him, the ship we were working on was ravaged by a storm and sunk off the coast of Cyprus. Only I and two others survived, and my father wasn't one of them."

Sandy tried to keep her expression from becoming full of pity, she had learned that people did not like the kind of 'aww, you poor baby' expression this kind of story evoked, certainly this elite assassin probably wouldn't like it either. "How did you end up here?" She wondered, keeping up the conversation.

"I made my way to Akka; I was thirteen at the time. I had hoped that I could find a ship that would take me back home, but I needed money, so I took up thievery. One day I simply chose to cut the purse of the wrong man, it ended up being one of the assassins. I guess my audacity amused the man, he dragged me back here."

"And you never went back?" Sandy asked.

Antonio's expression fell as he pushed off the wall of the box and began to pace, Sandy became aware that the memories she had probably drudged up with that question pained him. She realized that as unlikely as it seemed, he had went back, but things had not worked out.

"Five years passed before I did. I was allowed to go back with another of the brothers. It took time, but I eventually discovered that my mother had died of a broken heart when father and I did not return after that fateful voyage. My older sister had married a Moorish merchant and was with their second child at the time. They seemed happy together; I heard many good things about the man from the locals and his associates. I witnessed good on my own; in the way he treated their slaves. After that, I did not want to shock her by coming back from the dead all of the sudden. I thought perhaps thinking that I am dead would be a kinder thought than knowing I am an assassin."

"I'm sorry," Sandy whispered before she could stop herself.

"That was fifteen years ago, _senorita_. As you can see, I have been with my new family ever since."

Sandy remained quiet, unknowing what to say at that moment, but some part of her wondered what other stories some of the assassins could tell. Did everyone within the fortress have some sort of sad tale to impart? Certainly talking to Antonio had made her curious enough to know these stories. The past sometimes told more about a person than their present, and she began to wonder about the stories of the other two men who she considered friends.

Altair came to mind first, she thought he'd have a very interesting story to tell. Though she very much doubted that if she asked he would be quite as forthright with it as Antonio was. Perhaps it was for the best that she did not know his story.

Then there was Faisal, the other trainees his age, and the young kitchen boys, barely ten, still ever so young that they did not understand what was going on around them. How did they come to Masyaf for training? Were they orphans, or had their families sold them when they could no longer be supported? Could they perhaps be the young sons of other assassins, following the footsteps of their fathers out of filial duty? It was unthinkable to her twenty-first century sensibilities that any parent would just sell their child, nor wish them to follow in those footsteps, but it was not her place to object. The times were different and more unpleasant things happened than just those.

"_Senorita_, I think it is time we return to the fortress," Antonio stated.

Sandy turned her head to look at him and smiled, "Thank you and you're right. I was kind of lost in thought there."

* * *

Even as Sandy debated her dilemma that morning in Masyaf, Altair already left for Jerusalem and rode as fast as he could without exhausting Talimar. There was no sense in doing so, since Jamal was apparently set on playing a twisted game. The way between Damascus and Jerusalem wound even more than the way between Jerusalem and Masyaf. He had to take the road southwest towards the Sea of Galilee, going past it, further southwest, until the road met and joined another that led south to Jerusalem. The terrain sloped unevenly as he approached the Golan Heights, rising at times with hills, and yet mostly sloping down towards the Mediterranean Sea. He allowed Talimar two rests during the day, in which he himself had small meals, and by the time he stopped for the night he was past the Sea of Galilee, half way through his trip and no less annoyed.

During the night, standing on the high hills and looking towards Akka on the coat of the Mediterranean, Altair could make out the city by the fact that areas of it were burning. The flames were strong enough to be visible over the distance as a faint unnatural twinkling of orange and red, like stars upon the black expanse of the land, set against the blacker-yet expanse of the sea on the horizon. A thought occurred to him that when the city fell, there likely wouldn't be much left of it if the fires continued to rage like that.

He slept then, perched half sitting on a large still somewhat warm rock, never actually fully asleep, just dozing on and off, keeping his senses half open for attack at any time. Even without a bandit to awaken him rudely in the middle of the night, he never the less did not escape disturbance. The wind shifted directions as it often did, gusting brisk and chilled in the night, playing with the material of his hood, causing it to whisper against his ears. Before he realized what he was doing, he subconsciously reached over to pull closer someone who wasn't there.

Altair suddenly woke fully when his hand met nothing but cold stone, momentarily he thought that she had moved out of his reach, but a split second later his error registered in his mind. With it came the sudden realization that he had gotten too used to the presence of Cassandra, used enough that functioning as her source of warmth was something he began to do instinctively. With that though, he sat up fully and threw two more bunches of died grass into the dying embers of his fire, poking them with a long stick to stir the flames back to life, but the dancing fire did nothing to calm his mind; if anything it reminded him of the woman more.

Distractions were not something he permitted himself to have, he hated anything that might cause his attention to lapse away from the mission at hand, and if thoughts of this nature were to begin to haunt him, then he knew the simplest way of fixing the oversight. He had to distance himself from her; their running habit of sharing sleeping space had to stop. He would not allow her to become a distraction to him. With the solution decided upon, he resettled on the rock and went back to dozing, and when the sun dawned, he allowed himself a hasty meal of bread, cheese, and water and was on the road again towards Jerusalem.

The sun was just beginning to vanish behind the crags that surrounded Jerusalem when Altair sighted the city gates. Getting past them was a matter of finding a few merchants to tag behind, pretending to be their armed escort; it worked well enough to fool the guards if used very sparingly.

He left Talimar in the paid hands of the stable keepers just beyond the gates and made his way to the bureau. The streets were oddly quiet today, even the preachers seemed wary of something, and if he had been at all superstitious Altair would've taken that as an ill omen. He dodged most of the city traffic, and the overbearing beggars by taking to the rooftops, the two archers he saw he avoided before they could spot him. Jumping down through the gap in the latticework in the roof of the bureau's yard he wasn't surprised to see Malik, already waiting for him, with the letter from the rafiq of Damascus in his hand.

"I assume your men did not find Jamal," Altair stated, straightening.

"That would be convenient for you, wouldn't it?" Malik asked, "But no, my men have not found him. If they had, I would've _personally_ brought him back to Masyaf."

"How long have you know?" Altair asked.

"Long enough. The letter from Damascus was not the first to reach me, I have known of the events almost as quick as the messengers could ride. What were you thinking, thrusting her into the rink against Jamal's pupil?" Malik demanded, his voice rising very briefly with the flying accusation.

"I-"

"Don't answer that," he turned around, pacing back towards the door, "I am sure that you were _not_ thinking."

Altair watched Malik go for all of a split second before he followed him inside the bureau. "No particular harm has come to her, Malik."

"Yes, she is most fortunate not to have lost her life to your thoughtless acts, but how many times can she be that lucky?" Malik asked as he placed the letter on the table next to the various other scrolls of correspondence. When he turned again, Altair found himself face to face with the full brunt of Malik's rare glares, "once is it all it takes, Altair. Perhaps it is best that she is now under Antonio's care, at least his doting will keep her _safe_."

Altair clasped a fist and tried not react, this was worse than he had expected, and the worst part was that Malik was somewhat right. He knew he wasn't the right person to play custodian to a woman-child like Cassandra, but to go as far as to say Antonio would do a better job at it? That was going too far. He could argue the point with Malik, but it would be utterly fruitless, and if anything it might make things seem more compromising for all parties involved.

"The letter Jamal sent to you. Was there a clue in it to where to begin searching?" Malik asked after a second of the silence.

"There was nothing in the writing itself," Altair began, reaching into one of his pouches to retrieve the folded letter, which he handed over to Malik. "However, going by his actions in Damascus it is clear he means to travel, maybe even seek a passage with a caravan. I will begin searching among those merchants, and if all else fails, he will be where he is least likely to be noticed as an outsider, among the poor."

"Then my assumptions have proven right, he intends to avoid a direct confrontation, but it's interesting that he even sent this letter in the first place," Malik murmured, even as he read the letter itself.

"He probably sees all of this as a game."

Malik hummed as he paced in the room, suddenly buried in his thoughts, "That would make sense."

"You know something?" Altair asked.

Malik stopped in his pacing and his expression changed briefly to a glare before he spoke. "Only things I was told some time ago- well, that would be more than a year ago. Kadar overheard Jamal talking behind your back once. He had been trying to convince two others that you were an unholy spirit, simply because you are too skilled to be human. Kadar seemed convinced that he was quite mad, and now in light of what happened, I'm inclined to believe that Kadar had been right."

"That only leaves to discover how Cassandra fits into all of this. Why go after her?" Altair wondered. It was a question worth trying to answer, no matter how he turned it over in his mind, it did not fit together. While it was true that Jamal avoided him in all ways possible, but what did he think he stood to gain attacking Cassandra?

"Perhaps he thought that she was more to you than just a ward," Malik remarked. "She displays an unusual comfort in dealing with men. In all likelihood it is one more difference between now and when she comes from, but I assume Jamal does not know of the true origin of our time-traveling friend."

"Aside from the two of us, only Al Mualim knows. She didn't need to be told not to reveal it unless absolutely necessary."

"Then she has that much wisdom," Malik added. "I don't think I need to tell you that care has to be taken to protect her. She's unique, an innocent of innocents, one who does not belong here at all. Any harm that comes to her is egregious."

Altair cast his gaze to the floor briefly, he would never admit to it aloud, but he knew Malik was right. Cassandra was a type of innocent that would embody the first tenant of the creed; she did not belong in this time, in the middle of this conflict between him and Jamal.

"Well, standing here talking will do nothing more. Go and ready yourself for the search tomorrow, Jamal will not be an easy target to find, but the sooner you do it, the sooner you can take him back."

"You sound eager to be rid of me," Altair stated, turning to the door leading to the courtyard. Despite his endurance, he was beginning to feel the exhaustion of the long day's ride. Sleep beckoned, and within the comforts of the bureau he could allow himself to sleep in earnest, and not just doze.

Malik spared him a bored look, "I deny nothing."

Altair turned away and exited to the courtyard, grinning faintly. It was just the usual stab coming from Malik. He stripped off most of his weapons and the belt, leaving only his hidden blade before he eased himself down to a lying position among the sea of pillows. Once again it seemed to him that something was not quite as it should be, but he didn't dwell on that thought long enough to realize what it was, instead he slipped into the restorative deep sleep he needed, for the first time in three nights.

When Altair woke the next morning, the sun was already some distance up in the sky but there was absolute quiet. He was quick to realize that he had slept in, and despite just waking, his keen eyes did not miss the letter that had been on his chest, which slid down when he sat up. He picked up the parchment and skimmed over it. It was small enough to have come by carrier bird, and it bore the seals of both Masyaf and Damascus. When his momentarily sleep-fogged mind wrapped fully around the words in the letter, he rose to his feet and strode into the bureau, "What is the meaning of this?" he asked.

Malik looked up from his work, "That arrived late last night, with regards from your ward as you can see. It would seem that she caught wind of Jamal's madness and inquired to matters on her own, coercing Faisal to help her no less. The letter is little more than an affirmation of what we talked about last night, but there is one seed of information which we were missing."

"Yes, she apparently discovered why Jamal came after her," Altair stated with undisguised distaste. To think that Jamal would think the woman to be a jinni as well, and come after her simply because he saw her as his consort, the man's madness knew no bounds. Altair felt rightfully a little angrier at the thought that the woman nearly died for such a pathetic reason.

"I underestimated her dedication, such loyalty is commendable. However, I haven't got the faintest idea why she would bestow it upon you."

Altair set the relayed letter down on the table next to Malik's books, sparing the man a gratified smirk, for once Malik's jibe would not find its mark without a retort. "It's just the way she is." He turned and walked back to the yard to retrieve his arsenal before he ventured by the kitchen to get his breakfast. With that done, he set out for the long day of searching.

* * *

Sandy chewed on her breakfast slowly, staring through the grand hall's windows with her mind buzzing with many thoughts. There was decidedly one disadvantage about the twelfth century; it was the speed at which news traveled. She wanted to know how things were faring on the search for Jamal, but there were no sources for news that she could approach. By nature she wasn't a very patient person when she was idle, her patience only manifested when it was genuinely called upon. She hated these kinds of anxious circumstances.

She glanced at Antonio, who was once again sitting by her side. As of this morning his arm was out the sling, and he was allowed move it again, if only to help him with basic tasks, such as feeding himself. He was still nowhere near ready to active duty. She had seen the healer wrap fresh bandaging over his wound and that had been enough. The wound had been cauterized at some point, leaving behind some tell-tale chars around the edge of the torn skin. She didn't want to think how much it must've hurt to get that treatment, but it had worked. He would heal in time, but would forever have a large scar in the shape of the rend Jamal's knife had made.

"Is something bothering you?" Antonio asked.

"Oh, just the usual, the lack of news, smidge of worry- I'll get over myself."

Antonio smiled and pointed at her food with his own spoon, "Finish your food, then maybe we can take a walk somewhere."

"I was actually thinking of challenging Faisal again, might be fun."

"You really shouldn't fight him. He is quite capable of hurting you."

"And I'm quite possible of defending myself too. Antonio, I think it's sweet that you're trying to protect me, but I am not like the other women here. I can wield two knives, and besides that I have my own bag of dirty tricks."

"The rumor of you having killed a highwayman-"

"Entirely true, and it wasn't that hard, just threw some sand into his eyes before I stabbed him, that dirty ol' trick never fails. Sure, I wish I didn't have to do it, but what's done is done. The alternative did not appear appealing at the time." She didn't want to tell Antonio that at the time she had mistook Altair's feint for a genuine retreat and had attacked in _his_ defense. Somehow she figured the world was better off not knowing that element of the sordid story. If anything, she'd probably get laughed at; Altair retreating from anything seemed like something that would never happen.

"I must apologize then," Antonio stated.

Sandy turned sharply to look at him, noting somewhat peculiar, somewhat perturbed expression on his handsome features.

"It's fine Tony, no harm done." Sandy murmured.

Antonio's mouth curved into a smile, a single thing she saw so little of in Masyaf, and in a single instant his whole countenance changed. Gone was the odd expression, replaced by a spark of something quite different in his dark eyes. There was a touch of frustration there, with something else, something different. His left hand rose up, fingers moving towards her chin. Sandy allowed him to touch her cheek, to tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Tony-" she began.

Antonio moved his thumb, placing it on her lips, silencing her words and Sandy felt her face begin heating up. This was different she decided, she had never been treated with this amount of tenderness.

"Allow me to be your champion, _Senorita_," he stated.

Sandy was awed; there was unspeakable sincerity in his eyes, an expression she had never seen on any man. Coming from an assassin, it seemed to mean all that much more. All she could do was nod her head dumbly, but that action was enough to evoke the return of Antonio's bright smile.

"You shall not regret it, my lady." He stated gallantly, getting to his feet, and inclining his head in a faint bow.

"Tony! Please… this is kind of embarrassing," Sandy protested, waving her hand in a downward motion. Her face continued to heat up even as she smiled, he really chose the wrong subject to be jesting about. Knowing him as she did, she just couldn't see him as anyone's gallant knight. There was something decidedly un-knightly in the fact that he was an assassin. Furthermore she did not need, want, or looked for a knight in shining armor.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Rayo, the horse: Antonio's horse is in fact a warhorse, breed-wise it is of the ancestors of the modern Andalusian horses. Though that breed would not be called such until much, much later than the 12th century. I won't go into too much detail.

Tony's request: This is perhaps the biggest thing that needs an explanation. When Tony asks Sandy to be her champion, he mostly means to be her protector, but also the one she favors. Mostly, he is trying to utilize the 'courtly love' way of wooing women, typically associated with nobility. The amusement kicks in when one realizes that a knight never asks a lady that, she chooses if he receives her favor or not. The fact that the whole thing went utterly over Sandy's head because she is not from the period adds to it. Tony, being a humble sailor's son, knows little of how actual courtly love is pulled off.

**Director's Notes:**

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, next chapter will have more surprises, and things will begin wrapping up nicely, and undoing in some places too. I'll leave it up to you, my dear readers, to decide if Antonio had actually just thrown down the gauntlet to Altair or not, and what could happen next.


	10. Traps and Underhanded Gambits

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** I have hinted at the end of the previous chapter than this one would be awesome. And it's finally here. I won't blab too long, and make you wait any longer. Please enjoy responsibly.

_**

* * *

Chapter X:**_ _Traps and Underhanded Gambits_

Altair was crouching on the second story rooftop of a house overlooking the central street of Jerusalem's poor district. The day bode to be a very hot one, it wasn't noon yet and the sun was already overbearing, and there was no wind to break it up. The temperature was part of the reason for his sticking to the roofs like this. It was a relatively languid manner of looking for his target; it conserved energy and prevented the heat from getting to him. Up here he could observe two streets simultaneously, looking for anything of interest.

Time passed slowly, but eventually he spotted something of interest, a group of men was walking down the street, ruffians by the look of their jaunts. Among them was a man, who from a distance shared an uncanny resemblance to Jamal. Altair straightened and quickly made his away across the rooftops to get closer to the group.

He quickly ascertained that all six of the other men in the group were armed, all six had swords, and one probably had a concealed weapon strapped to his back, judging by the way he carried himself. The man of interest among them was indeed Jamal, dressed in the plain clothes of the people around him. It brought a grin to Altair's features. The fool was utterly unaware of how close he was to the end of his games. However therein remained a problem, to emerge unto the busy street now would draw city guards to the resulting commotion, giving Jamal a window to escape. Altair doubted the coward would stick around if given the choice of fight or flight.

Jamal had surrounded himself in a diversionary force, one meant to give him a window of opportunity to escape. It left Altair wondering who these six men were, and why they would risk certain death at his hands to protect the snake. It could be a simple matter of them being unaware of the precise nature of the danger they were in, but if they chose to get in his way they forfeited their lives.

Stealthily as he could, Altair followed the large group from the rooftops, patiently waiting for a window of opportunity to strike. If he was allowed to kill Jamal out right, things would've been a lot simpler; all he would need is one strike. He could easily fend off all six fools when Jamal was dying at his feet.

The group stopped at times to talk to some of the merchants; the guards were quick to pressure the vendors into _donating_ money for something. Altair could not hope to overhead the conversation from this distance, and he couldn't draw closer. Jamal never spoke to the merchants, instead his eyes scanned the street, constantly checking for a tail, and it made drawing any closer to the man difficult. Occasionally he even scanned the rooftops, so that Altair had to duck out of sight and risk alerting the man. Jamal was exhibiting the paranoia that Cassandra had warned about, the man was clearly agitated, overly-cautious, and Altair decided probably not in the right state of mind, even for him.

An hour passed before he realized it, and he trailed the group to the middle district. Two of the guards exchanged words with Jamal and then walked away, leaving four behind, better odds, but still not the ideal time to make his move. In the next hour one more of the guards had separated, sent away by Jamal himself upon some sort of errand.

Altair realized with a start that they were drawing near the barracks of the city guard, he cursed to himself. Now even if Jamal was alone the odds of avoiding a commotion were slim. The anger surged in him, two hours of following and for nothing. It was as if Jamal knew that he was being followed, but that couldn't be, Altair knew that Jamal had not spotted him yet.

As the group entered a plaza, Altair knew he had to make his move, to try a capture now, while the odds were still in his favor. Any closer to the barracks, and the odds would tip unfavorably. As the men stopped by the plaza's fountain to replenish their water skins, Altair moved. He ran across the roof and gracefully vaulted unto the top of a narrow stone archway that stood at the entrance to the plaza, and made his way across it, crouching low for balance. From there he vaulted unto the wooden beams that protruded from the side of a building, the landing was a little rough but he stuck to it.

"What is that man doing?" One of the women on the street asked.

Altair cursed silently as one of the guards turned, spotting him. In that instant he leapt down from the beams, hidden blade extending with a near inaudible _schink_, a scream echoed just as he buried his knife into the first ruffian's neck, easing the man's body to the ground.

"Altair," Jamal spoke. "Here at last, I assume you intend to kill me?"

The other two guards drew their swords, already advancing on him as he straightened. Altair withdrew his hidden blade. "The master wants you brought back alive," he replied as he drew his sword free from its sheath.

"And you expect me to believe that? You, the one who always disregards the rules as mere suggestions, you would not kill me where I stand if given a chance," Jamal argued, amusement in his tone, something that was quickly beginning to grate on Altair's nerves.

"If it were up to me, you'd be dead already. That first strike would have been aimed at _your_ neck."

"Such anger, such _hate_, and they say you're incapable of feelings. All this over one woman; how _was_ her funeral?"

"She still lives, your attack had merely stunned her," Altair replied.

"A jinni is, as a jinni does." Jamal waved his hand and suddenly the remaining guards attacked.

Altair blocked the first attack, sweeping the sword from the attacker's hands in the same movement. The weapon cluttered away as the man fell backwards to the stone paved ground, but in that moment the other swung, stopping Altair from using the window of opportunity to deliver a deadly strike. Altair knew the first sign of combat had renewed the sense of urgency and panic within the civilians on the street, already people were running for shelter, emptying the square.

The second time the thug attacked, Altair blocked it and effortlessly got under his guard, running the man through. Altair had barely managed to pull his sword out when the other thug attacked, having recovered his sword. Altair was not in the mood to draw this fight out and dispatched him just as effortlessly, sidestepping the first thrust, slamming the pommel of his sword into the man's gut. The thug stumbled, eyes widening as Altair impaled him upon the sword.

Silence settled in the now empty square as Altair straightened and turned to Jamal. "Fight me," he commanded.

The traitor smiled, surprisingly brave for a man who had just lost the last of his bodyguards. "And risk my life? I rather not," he replied, despite the fact that his hand was on the hilt of his own sword.

"You have no choice," Altair stated, drawing near. The sword in his hand was still dripping with the blood of the two men he had just dispatched; he flicked the blade, tossing the drops off to the ground at his feet. This was it, he only had to incapacitate this arrogant fool, and the chase would be over. Altair sheathed his sword; he didn't need it for this part. The orders said he was to bring Jamal back alive; there was no clause about bringing him back unharmed.

Jamal stepped back, chuckling, enjoying the annoyance Altair didn't bother to mask from his face. "So you say, but in the meantime- tell me, is she good? She must be good to have charmed so many men, but to the harlot you're probably just another conquest on a long list."

Something in the traitor's words enraged Altair, enough that he attacked, swinging wide, aiming for the man's jaw, fully intending to break it and silence his words. Jamal laughed as he dodged him, and dimly Altair became aware of footsteps on the street, many footsteps belonging to at least ten if not more.

"Assassin!" a voice shouted.

"See?" Jamal taunted, blocking another of Altair's punches. "You're now in _my_ trap, Altair. There is no escape," Jamal stepped back and drew his sword.

Altair glanced back, seeing seven city guards and the three other ruffians running at him from the barracks. He cursed, the split had been a ruse and he fell for it. Everything had been planned to get him to emerge from his hiding spot, to expose himself. Jamal's actions, the extortion, everything suddenly clicked within Altair's mind in a single moment of lucidity. The money was not for travel, or maybe not entirely for travel. Part of it was used to buy the cooperation of the city guards for this endeavor. The extortion of the merchants was also just a way to fund this very elaborate, very hare-brained ruse, and maybe skim some money off the side.

"Come after me if you dare," Jamal taunted. "You won't make it out of this trap alive."

"We'll see," Altair reached for his sword just as he was surrounded by the guards. Jamal expected him to die in this trap; the man probably had no plan at all in case that it failed.

Two of the guards rushed him simultaneously. Altair unsheathed his sword and stepped back, parrying the first blow effortlessly and causing the swords to shriek as they met blade to flat. His free hand reached for the throwing knives at his waist. Another of the guards swung high, Altair ducked and swept low, cleaving at the man's knee, before thrusting up and running the guard through. In the split second pause as the other watched his comrade drop, Altair whipped out a knife and threw it with a flick of his wrist. The second guard went down with the knife sticking out from his windpipe.

Suddenly two more charged, emboldened and enraged by their swift deaths of their comrades. Altair stepped out of the way of their clumsy, enraged attacks, ducking again to avoid another high swing. As he straightened, and in the split second that it took the guards to ready another swing he lashed out, impaling one upon his sword, sending blood flying in tiny splatters through the air. The other recoiled away from the splatter of his comrade's vital fluid, edging away.

Altair was keenly aware that Jamal was watching this spectacle, enjoying it. Well let him enjoy it, he thought. This would be the last thing the traitor enjoyed. Soon enough the fool would be ruing this gruesome plan, the death of the thirteen fools today would not be Altair's fault.

"He's a monster!" the guard exclaimed with astonishment.

Altair smirked, what was it that Jamal called him? If the traitor wanted to see a _shaitan_, he'd show the bastard a _shaitan_. He drew his second throwing knife, and flicked it, the one to call him a monster went down without a further cry.

The flash of sunlight glinting off a blade off to his side alerted Altair to another attack. Gripping his sword with both hands, he blocked and parried the blow slightly aside. The two swords locked, grinding flat-to-flat as Altair drew closer to his opponent, finally locking the hand guard of his blade against the guard of the other. With a final jerk he pushed against the other sword with all his strength, sending its wielder toppling to the ground, Altair did not miss a beat in impaling the man upon his sword.

With the fifth kill claimed, Altair stepped back, already feeling the strain of combat in the overbearing heat. His breathing was lapsing into an erratic rhythm, draining him of strength as his muscles craved air they were not getting. Gripping the sword tighter he sent Jamal a vicious glare, daring the bastard to enter the fray, but the traitor merely stood by with his arms folded over his chest, observing the battle with an arrogantly amused expression on his face.

"What's the matter Altair? Tired already?" he taunted.

"I'm tired of this mockery. Their blood will be on _your_ hands."

"So says a man who has met his match," Jamal retorted, raising one hand, and waving his fingers.

The three ruffians, who had previously hung back, now entered the fray, drawing their own swords. The three all came simultaneously, swinging like the amateurs they were. Altair kicked one in the knee, feeling the satisfying sensation of the joint giving way under the force of his blow. The ruffian howled in pain and stumbled, whereupon he became casualty number six. The other two paused, their swords lowering for a split of a second, Altair lunged on the initiative, burying his sword through the gut of one, and ramming his wrist blade into the neck of the other.

Two city guards remained. They glanced at Jamal, as if communicating their uncertainties, but the traitor sent them a threatening glare as he pulled out a wicked knife. The silent message was clear enough for the men, and they drew their swords.

Altair was faster in drawing his remaining throwing knives and finishing them off where they stood, though he would've preferred it if they had turned tail and ran. "Just you and me," he turned, glaring at Jamal.

"So it would seem," Jamal replied.

Altair watched him as he moved around the battlefield, reclaiming his throwing weapons from the corpses of the felled men. "Did you honestly expect them to stop me?" he asked.

"Truthfully? No. I was hoping you'd finish them off, and now I don't have to actually pay them," Jamal replied. "But they did a good job in their true purpose."

Altair felt hate burn in him at the man's words, he had just murdered thirteen who had been merely pawns to this madman, like cattle sent to the slaughter, and for what? To tire him out? If that was the plan, then Jamal sorely underestimated his stamina, the thirteen had winded him a little but he wasn't tired.

"Let's finish this," Altair commanded, his voice dipping low into a hiss.

"With pleasure," Jamal replied, yanking out his sword as he lunged. His sword was not the same as Altair's, a little shorter, and narrower. It was of a lighter build, a trade of some power for some more speed.

Altair met his attack head on, pouring all his strength, anger, and hate into the blow. Steel met steel with a loud reverberating _clang_, sending a faint spark flying.

"You are tired," Jamal hissed, teeth gritted together; "You can't make me budge now."

Altair shoved him away, just to prove him wrong, swinging horizontally to the man's middle. Jamal dropped the point of his blade down, blocking the swing, again steel met steel with a _clang_, causing both swords to vibrate. Metal shrieked as Jamal pushed closer, raising his free hand, thrusting his dagger foreword, but Altair saw it coming and batted the man's knife hand away with his armored vambrace.

The traitor's sword flashed up, releasing Altair's, and the elite assassin barely moved his head out of the way of the flashing tip, which whistled past his ear, nicking his hood as it went. In retort Altair swung again, aiming to cleave the bastard shoulder to hip, no longer caring about the standing orders to bring him back alive. Jamal blocked the attack and the swords locked, guard to guard, bringing their wielders close. Altair struggled to force his heavier sword down, pouring his strength into the locked blades, and little by little Jamal's arm began to give, forcing him to toss aside his knife and switch to a two handed grip.

"Who's losing strength now?" Altair asked, gritting his teeth.

Jamal stepped away, suddenly releasing all that tension; Altair's strength carried his sword downward until its tip almost hit the ground. Both fighters circled each other, oblivious to everything around them that had nothing to do with their fight.

Jamal lunged and Altair saw his opening, exposing the blade he met the attack blade to blade, the swords rang like bells and suddenly Jamal's simply shattered, its lighter blade notched and cracked by the heavier blow from Altair's. The traitor stumbled back, shocked, eyes widening.

"It's over," Altair advanced, sheathing his sword. With his sword broken and his knife tossed aside Jamal was defenseless, one good blow to the face would be enough to rend him unconscious. Altair intended to do what he meant to do at the beginning, break the fool's jaw for the obscenities he had spouted.

"Yes, it is," Jamal replied.

Altair saw the man's expression shift and suddenly his arm flashed, a dagger emerged from his sleeve. Utterly unprepared for the attack, Altair could only instinctively grab at the man's forearm as the knife bore down upon him. The grab was clumsy and too close, too late, a second later he felt a searing pain on the left side of his chest; the knife's tip had sunk through his two tunics and entered flesh.

Jamal's other hand flashed, and Altair grabbed it too as they struggled. Jamal, to force the knife deeper, Altair to push him away. The burning grew, acrid and painful, and with it the pain magnified. The tension of all his muscles made it worse and Altair's strength began to give, letting the knife sink a sliver deeper.

"I'll be sure to send your beloved jinni your heart _in a box_," Jamal sneered.

Altair's eyes narrowed, he felt the wrath return, and with it his strength. Jamal continued to bear down, ever stronger, yet Altair simply smirked. The tiny shift in Jamal's balance gave Altair a tiny opening. He shifted the angle of his left hand relative to his wrist, aligning his hidden blade to the gap created by his missing ring finger. Jamal's eyes widened with sudden realization, instantly he attempted to pull back, freeing the tip of the knife from the wound it created. Altair held the traitor's wrist firmly in place and his smirk widened, with a jerk of his little finger he pulled on the ring release mechanism. The hidden blade emerged with a thunderous _schink,_ piercing clean between the two bones of Jamal's forearm.

Jamal's hand instantly snapped loose as he recoiled in pain. The knife dropped from his grip and cluttered on the ground between them. Altair let go of his wrist, yanking the wrist blade free. The jerk of the blade's withdrawal caused the traitor to howl in pain as the wound was sliced wider.

Altair's left hand felt slick with Jamal's blood, his tunics were quickly becoming stained red with his own, and suddenly the town's alarm bells began to peal, bringing the two back to reality. Altair stepped back, jerking his head in the direction of the city's guard barracks. Ten guards emerged from the building and Altair cursed loudly. Two more were coming from the other street. These were not Jamal's paid guards; they were a crowd drawn by a fight that lasted too long.

"You still lose," Jamal hissed, holding his wrist.

"No, I win. You will be dead in some alley within a day, and I will find your sorry corpse then," Altair turned and bolted. He knew he couldn't fight another squad of guards, not with this throbbing injury to his chest. Malik's men would be able to find Jamal easily by following the blood trail he would undoubtedly leave. There were only a handful of places in the city where a man with such a severe injury could go. Altair made for the beams from which he had leapt down.

"Stop! Assassin!" one of the guards shouted.

Ignoring the guards, he pulled himself up to the beams, grimacing at the magnified throbbing of his injury. From there he clambered unto the roof of the building, unto the arch, across it to the next roof. It took the guards too long to get to the roofs themselves, Altair was already running across the flat expanses. The burning of his wound continued getting worse and worse and the thought of poison occurred to him. It wasn't the first time he had come too close to the tip of a knife, but none of the other times had burned and itched quite like this. Assassins never used poison, deeming it a coward's weapon, but Jamal was just the sort of coward who would resort to it.

He leapt down into to bureau yard, the landing jarring him into stumbling. It was as if his ability to bear his own weight had suddenly been impaired. Straightening he entered the bureau, instantly meeting the proprietor's eyes.

Malik's expression flicked from annoyance to one of surprise as he undoubtedly spotted the blood, but then the annoyance returned two-fold. "Who did you kill?" he demanded.

"Jamal's paid men," Altair replied. "Malik I have no time for this, I fought with Jamal himself and managed to injure him, but not all of this blood is his." He said, leaning unto the doorframe. Even as he spoke, a faint tingling began in his extremities, spreading upwards to the major muscles of his body, weakening him with each passing second. "Call the healer." Altair stated, and stumbled back outside.

* * *

Sandy and Faisal sat on the crates as they watched the trainees work in the practice rink. Occasionally the two would exchange comments on how either of them could've done better on any given move and defense. Antonio was nowhere to be seen, and for that Sandy was glad. After the events in the dining hall, things had turned a little awkward for her when it came to Antonio. He had caused quite a scene getting up, and there was the matter of his words. She didn't know exactly what he meant with what he said that time, about being her champion, but her gut instinct was on alert. She had learned to trust that instinct most of all, some called it paranoia, but to her it was as indispensable as any of her other five senses.

The two boys fighting in the rink, both younger and less experienced than Faisal, were using wooden practice knives. They would still recoil subtly when the wooden knives came in contact with each other, showing their lack of confidence. Their trainer would remark on that every time, with growing impatience.

"Those two still act like ten year olds who just began training," Faisal remarked.

"Cut them some slack, Faisal. I'm sure you were no better at their age."

"I _was_ better," Faisal retorted.

"Sure you were, and pigs can fly," Sandy replied, rolling her eyes. Faisal made a face and Sandy grinned, smacking his shoulder in a friendly manner.

"What was that for?" Faisal protested.

"Nothing, just kidding with'cha," Sandy replied.

"You're the oddest girl I have ever met, you know that? The others tell me that all girls are good for is crying when they are in danger, and you-"

"I'm not a girl, Faisal, I'm twenty two, that makes me a woman," Sandy protested.

"Why aren't you married then?" He asked.

Sandy stopped cold, almost choking at the candidness of Faisal's question. A second later she got her senses back, realizing that for the twelfth century it was a pretty darn good question. By current standards she could almost be rightfully called an old maid. "Let's just say, where I come from, we don't marry that young. Some marry at twenty; some marry at twenty five, up to thirty its considered fine. Me? I haven't met a man I would like to marry, you know."

"And your parents didn't-"

"Arrange? No."

Faisal tipped his head to the side, curiosity obvious on his face, yet he remained silent, and Sandy grinned.

"You asking these questions makes it seem like you're interested."

Faisal recoiled, as if scolded by hot oil, and Sandy burst out laughing as she watched his expression change from surprise to a slight tinge of embarrassment barely visible in the faint reddening of his finely tanned ears. Her laughter didn't last long, knowing full well that it wasn't fair to be laughing at Faisal's reactions. He was a fifteen year old boy; even if his hormones had kicked in he was still probably too young to be thinking about women like that, especially with his upbringing and being surrounded by older men. His embarrassment quickly gave way to indignation as he folded his arms over his chest and glared.

"That wasn't funny," he muttered. "Why would I want you for a wife, why would anyone?"

Sandy's expression fell instantly as every cell within her body froze, instantly hurt at the insinuation in his voice. She knew that there was something wrong with her, why at the age of twenty-two she had only experience with two guys who she would've called boyfriends, and neither of those relationships had even ever got close to anything. Despite it all, hearing the fifteen year say things like that hurt. She got to her feet and folded her arms, holding herself by the elbows.

"You have no right to speak of whether any man would want me, or not!" She bit back, looking back at him with the most cross expression she could muster, despite the sudden pain. She had set herself up for that one, but still, hearing it hurt enough that it left a sting.

The fifteen year old was suddenly grinning, "You're right, I did not have a right. You have _Tony_."

"Faisal!" Sandy exclaimed.

The fifteen year old got to his feet and bolted before Sandy could grab him, laughing all the way. She gave earnest chase, forgetting his hurtful words earlier in favor of catching the teasing nuisance and giving him the biggest noogie she could muster.

"When I get my hands on you, Faisal! You will rue the day!"

"I'm right though!" he shouted back.

"Get back here!" Sandy called as she chased him across the yard and past the fortress' gate to the town below, completely ignoring the other assassins that stopped to watch the peculiar scene.

"Catch me if you can!" Faisal shouted, briefly looking back over his shoulder.

Sandy pushed herself to run faster downhill, lapsing into a very familiar routine. Running had always been one of her small hobbies, ever since her high school years and track and field team days. She hadn't been the best runner or sprinter on the team, but she had enjoyed it tremendously. She chased Faisal all the way to the market street of Masyaf; the boy was only forced to stop when the crowd got a little too thick for him.

Sandy instantly caught up, putting the boy in a headlock and grinding her knuckles into the top of his head, laughing all the while as the fifteen year old struggled to get loose from her grip.

"Apologize," she stated.

"For what? For the truth? Never!"

"That was not the truth! There is nothing between me and Tony!"

"I could've said you had _Altair_," Faisal replied, still struggling.

"And you'd have been punched out for that one. So take your noogie like a man and stop struggling!"

Faisal stilled and Sandy let go of him, on the matter of principle, since she really didn't want to hurt the kid. When he straightened and sent her a glare, Sandy took a swipe at him for good measure, but the boy dodged her. Casting a look around both realized where their chase had led them to and that people were watching this curious scene with unabated stares. Faisal's expression soured, "I'm in trouble," he stated plainly.

"Why?"

"I was told not to leave the fort!" he exclaimed.

"Well then- race you back!" she shouted and bolted right back uphill. She could hear Faisal's footsteps as he chased her, and she put her best into it. Remembering the thrill of track and field and feeling of freedom that running used to give her. Halfway up she glanced over her shoulder and could see that Faisal was keeping up, but tiring. Running uphill was not as easy as running downhill. She slowed down, purposefully letting the boy catch up, but not overtake her. Past the fortress' gates they stopped and bent down, holding their hands on their knees, trying to catch their oxygen.

"That-" she panted. "Was fun."

"Yes," Faisal replied.

"I still beat you," Sandy boasted, giving the kid a cheeky grin.

"You have longer legs!" Faisal protested.

"And if you trained yours more, that wouldn't matter," Sandy replied.

"Are all girls where you come from so… violent?"

"Only to smarmy brats like you," Sandy replied, grabbing the fifteen-year-old by the scruff and pulling him along back towards the crates, in plain view of every other assassin in the courtyard. Faisal struggled again, trying to brace his heels into the ground, but her grip on his tunic remained strong. His struggles only got more and more pronounced when more and more eyes began to watch them with amusement.

* * *

Altair sat in the shadowed corner of the bureau's yard, leaning his head and back on the cool stone of the wall, left forearm resting on a bent knee, the other leg stretched out before him. Left utterly unarmed, clad only in his pants and boots, his chest was bound up with linen bandages, and he couldn't be in a fouler mood. His previously pristine tunics, sash, and cowl were ruined with his own blood, necessitating their replacement, which would take time to arrive. His belt and wrist blade's vambrace were sent to be thoroughly cleaned of blood as well, the former of his own, the latter of Jamal's. Though Malik kept connections with people who would do the tasks and not ask questions, it would all take time.

The wound on his chest burned and throbbed dully under the bandages, causing the most maddening urge to scratch, something he couldn't do. The healer had come and gone, and the poison had proven to be entirely a false alarm. The healer had been quick to recognize the symptoms as the effects of an anesthetic made with opium. A potent medicinal form used to put patients to sleep for surgery. Jamal probably counted on the drug as an assurance in the event that his first strike couldn't hit something vital. It was fortunate for him that the dose had been improperly chosen and had taken too long to come into effect. The air felt impossibly hot to Altair and the numbness in his fingers still lingered, as it would for an hour or two longer as the opium lost its potency.

Malik appeared from inside the bureau and stood in the doorway watching him.

Altair's patience was on a hair trigger and he sent the man a vicious glare. "What is it that you want, Malik? I'm not dead yet, and I'm not going to die," he stated.

"I was merely coming to tell you that my men are out looking for Jamal. I very much doubt a little opium is enough to kill someone as arrogant as you."

Altair's glare got even more vicious as he shifted his weight to sink deeper into the shifting shadows of the yard.

"A thought occurred to me when the opium was mentioned. Jamal must have within his acquaintance a healer as well; he won't just turn up in an alley." Malik went on, unbothered.

"He will when I'm done with him," Altair stated coldly. Orders be damned, when he got his hands on Jamal after this, he would take pleasure in killing the bastard, and doing it in the most painful, delayed way he could, but he would begin by torturing out some information of personal interest. He could deal with Al Mualim's objections later.

"I should notify the old man, have him send ba-"

"No." Altair cut in. "You will not send any letter to Masyaf. I will finish this myself. Alone. The injury I gave Jamal will keep him down longer than this _scratch_ he gave me."

"Still arrogant and stubborn as ever!" Malik exclaimed, clearly annoyed. He began to pace from the bureau doorway to the wall opposite and back again.

"Think what you want Malik, but you will not send that letter," Altair's tone took on a commanding edge. He knew full well what would happen if Masyaf was notified. He did not need nor want the backup that would be dispatched; however, the news that he got injured on a mission would not be contained for long. Within a day the whole fort would know and with it so would _she_. He understood Cassandra well enough to know how reckless she was, she would probably come running to Jerusalem all on her own, all out of some stupid desire to help him. The last thing Jerusalem needed was her arrival with Jamal still on the loose.

Malik shook his head and disappeared back inside the bureau, leaving Altair alone with his thoughts and brooding. Altair let his head fall back against the cool wall and closed his eyes. Getting angry was not helping him; it gave the numbness of the opium a stronger foothold on his system. At the moment he couldn't do much more than sit there, and wait. Dallying about was the last thing Altair ever wanted to be doing while on a mission, but he'd be suicidal not to realize that he could not go searching for Jamal now. Even if his weapons were not at the cleaner's and his tunics had been spared ruin. The town was still on alert, though the alarm bells had stilled, and the guards would be looking for a man dressed in white.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Opium Anesthetic: This was an actual use for an extract made from the opium poppy during the 12th century. The extract of the Opium poppy is actually mostly made up of morphine, known far and wide for its powerful pain numbing properties. Though it does that by numbing the nerves, putting the person into a haze. Mixed with a few other things and prepared properly, this anesthetic could not only put you to sleep and numb the pain, but actually kill (at high doses).

Dosages and delays: This is where things get a little dicey, and I feel the need to explain the science behind the delay theory here and why stuff worked out. The knife did not go in deeper than half an inch and when it was rending through the layered tunics Altair wears a great deal of the drug was wiped off by the absorbent fibers of the thick cloth. To be blunt Altair's sheer physical size relative to the small dosage weakened the effect somewhat.

**Director's Notes:**

I really hope you loved this chapter. It is very much what I would call my best chapter yet. I really tried to make the action scene stick to the familiar spirit of the game, but also give you realism and more tension, more drama, more 'awesome'. The aim was definitely to make Altair even more badass than he is, if that's possible. I really tried to make an 'edge of seat' experience. Jamal will be paying for that Xanatos Gambit soon.


	11. The Final Game

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**Author Notes:** Chapter eleven, I really don't know what to say about this one before you actually read it, so I wont say anything. In fact, I think starting from the next chapter, I will do away with this head note altogether. Enjoy the chapter though.

_**

* * *

Chapter XI**_: The Final Game

Three days passed since Altair's injury and Malik was officially at his wit's end. Altair was near unmanageable when he was injured and doubly so when the injury had begun to fester, leaving the elite assassin bedridden with a mild fever.

As a bureau keeper, Malik knew his duties well and went about them with efficiency. At the first opportunity he sent his best men searching among the healers and surgeons of Jerusalem for the one who aided Jamal. The search had proven successful on the third day and Malik had gone to see the surgeon personally, a slight deviation from the normal routine, but he knew that his men would not get all the information he wanted out of the good doctor. Such an interrogation usually required the touch of a specialist. In the end things had turned out easier than Malik would have expected them to. The mere hint of a threat upon his life had cowed the surgeon into revealing everything he knew and left Malik with the unpleasant job of relaying a letter from Jamal to Altair. Malik approached the sole furnished guest room of the bureau and didn't bother knocking as he entered. He found Altair much as he found him the previous two days, and the sight gave Malik no satisfaction.

"What is it?" Altair demanded, displaying no more patience than he normally did, but more annoyance.

"I talked with the surgeon," Malik replied. "Jamal is gone to Yaffa according to this letter he left you." He approached the bed and handed the letter over, watching as Altair read it with a growing anger on his expression.

Malik had read the letter himself, so he knew of its content. Jamal was challenging Altair to follow him one last time, saying that he had arranged a ship to take him to Cyprus in seven days. It seemed that even Jamal was done playing the game after his injury. The letter was not dated, but Malik knew that they had already lost two days of that due date.

"I am sick of his games," Altair stated, "but at least he finally confirms his travel intentions. Yaffa is the only port open to him while Akka is besieged."

"This will be your final chance, and if you must kill him, then do so. However, I do not think it will come to that. According to the surgeon, the wound you gave the traitor is worse than anything we could've foreseen or even hoped for. Your blade severed something vital; he will never regain the full use of his right hand." Malik stated, though really it was good news of limited use. Jamal would not live long enough to be particularly bothered by his sudden handicap, still it meant that he would no longer be able to wield a sword and his fighting prowess would be greatly diminished.

The news of Jamal's permanent injury brought a noticeable lightening in Altair's expression; Malik would dare bet his allowances for a month on the fact that the news brought some element of enjoyment too. He couldn't blame Altair for that feeling either; even he had felt a little better when the surgeon had told him of Jamal's injury. It seemed only right for a man who would dare strike a woman in such a manner.

"I will depart for Yaffa the day after tomorrow," Altair stated.

"That is cutting it close, but-" Malik paused, mildly frustrated, "it can't be helped. There is another piece of news that will bother you," Malik began. This piece of news was entirely internal, but it would give Altair a second deadline if he insisted on keeping Masyaf out of the loop. "I received a note from Damascus, Al Mualim is not happy with the delay. I'm sure once he knows you are here in Jerusalem, I will be getting a letter as well. I did not send one myself because you asked, but if he demands an explanation from me I will not lie."

"I understand," Altair stated.

"Good," Malik stated, turned on his heels, and exited the room.

Altair could think that his true reason for concealing the progress of the hunt was well hidden, but Malik knew him long enough to know that this sudden care for subterfuge had nothing to do with his overall rather minor injury. He had been injured on missions before and had never cared. The difference between those times and now was only in one thing that Malik could see. Cassandra's presence seemed to complicate matters for everyone who came in contact with her. It raised one too many questions in Malik's mind, questions that neither Altair nor the woman would answer, so he decided the best thing to do was not to ask. The truth had a habit of surfacing, no matter how well people tried to conceal it. In time, the truth of this matter would come to the surface as well.

He made his way back to his work, currently he was pouring over some reports from colleagues in Akka who were keeping an eye open on the siege; their information was invaluable in plotting the current position of the heretic king's army camp and their numbers. Being the best map-maker of Masyaf and the bureau keeper in Jerusalem kept Malik busy twofold.

* * *

As he promised, day after next Altair was forced to depart for Yaffa. The fever which had plagued him had had broken, but the injury itself remained tender and bothersome. Malik had been right in his assumption that he'd be contacted. The previous day a letter from Masyaf arrived and Malik had been unable to do anything more than report the truth. It was the fourth of July now, and the summer heat was worse than ever, yet he was on the road between Jerusalem and the ancient coastal city of Yaffa, passing over yet more craggy hills and mountains which slowed down the ride over the otherwise relatively short distance.

By sundown he sighted Yaffa and two hours after the sun vanished in the waters of the Mediterranean he was in the city. The air here was thick with the scent of the sea, and loud with the bustle of the evening. Frustratingly enough, the city's very small size meant there was no bureau for him to utilize, so he would have to use someone's roof garden for a sleeping space. Yaffa was not a place where his job took him often, maybe once a year at most. However it was a port city that was of some importance, especially now that Akka was blockaded and besieged.

Altair left Talimar in the hands of the stable keepers and decided to scout out a few places within the city tonight, given that he had a deadline and the hot day gave way to a surprisingly cool and pleasant evening. The throng was just beginning to thin as people returned to their homes for the night, some of the merchants were closing shop; some others would remain open a little longer, set to cater to the evening crowd as torches were lit in the old roman-period streets.

Altair passed into the harbor district, walking slowly, minding who he might bump into. The harbor district was also the place where the brothels were situated and he noted the occasional man moving towards the pleasure houses, but he had no interest in splurging his allowances on such a thing, some food would do better.

At the first baker he spotted he bought himself a bun as dinner, and from the first fruit vendor he chose one large juicy apple. After enjoying his meal he methodically checked the most likely spots where Jamal might be, beginning with the doctors, since most of them kept odd hours. Altair went around, asking if any of them had treated a man with a nearly useless right hand and a fresh wound, but came up empty-handed. There were few doctors in Yaffa and most of them seemed hardly competent to care for a headache, much less such a wound. His own wound would still ache at times, but Altair could ignore the pain as he went on with his search. At times like this he was reminded why he very much hated this kind of work.

Next he checked the Yaffa's port. It was sparse with ships, mostly the small fishing vessels of the locals and the few larger vessels belonging to merchants who had come to Yaffa from places like Alexandria or Cyprus. These craft hugged the coastlines on their way; they were hardly capable of venturing into the open sea. However, any one of these larger vessels could be the craft that could serve as Jamal's escape route out of the kingdom.

A few minutes of eavesdropping were enough to discover the one ship that would depart to Cyprus in the next couple days. He would wait in its proximity despite how utterly unappealing the prospect of such a blatant ambush was. For this task, he would've preferred something a little farther away from people and possible interruptions. Satisfied with his quick orientation Altair left the harbor behind as the night drew long around him. It took half an hour, but he found a derelict abandoned house close to the walls, it had a roof garden which would do as a sleeping spot.

The next morning Altair awoke with the first rays of sunlight peering through the tattered curtains. He climbed out and took a few moments to stretch out all the sleep-sore muscles he had due to resting fully armed. Afterwards, he made his way back to street level where he visited the same merchants as the evening before in order to get some breakfast. There was one more inconvenience in a lack of bureau, food costs were coming directly out of his allowances, which were meager to begin with.

On a whim he decided to check the brothels, just in case Jamal decided to hire some entertainment for the night. The morning offered a better opportunity, as the patrons were half-bleary, thoroughly sated men. However as with the doctors, the search of pleasure quarters had turned out to be fruitless. Only netting him three women who insisted they would give him a hefty discount if he decided to be a patron at their establishments.

Resigned to his initial plan, Altair returned to the docks, the Cyprus-bound ship was still in the port and he found a shaded spot where he could keep an eye on it. It was his best bet at spotting Jamal after all, even if it meant hours of sitting in one spot and slowly becoming more and more frustrated with the tedium of the task. Fortunately the fresh, salt-tinged air coming off the sea was also a nice break from the staler, sewage-and-rot laced smells of bigger inland cities. Combined with the sound of waves dashing on docks did something to keep his mood relatively in check.

Seated on a bench in the shade, his mind lapsed into uncontrolled thinking as the mind often did when the body was doing absolutely nothing. Yaffa itself was really on a verge of hell and there was no point in trying to deny that. It was widely predicted that if Akka fell, Richard and his army would march for Yaffa as a stopover before their final march on Jerusalem. Cassandra had predicted that the 'if' was a definite 'when', and he didn't need her words to guess what would happen next. In a matter of months this calm little city would be the sight of another bloodbath between the European invaders and the armies of Salah ad-Din. There was merit in enjoying the view while it was still there.

People come and went; Altair only watched them long enough to ascertain they were not his target. The harbor was eventually left with the larger ships as the fishermen went out in their smaller vessels to net their daily catches.

By mid afternoon Altair tired of sitting in one place and decided to walk around, still keeping around the Cyprus-bound ship. With the anger of the past week somewhat subdued by the languor of the atmosphere he realized that he should attempt to capture Jamal still, and for that he would need rope. Purchasing the right length would not be cheap, so he resigned himself to having to steal it. Finding a good length of rope not affected by salt rot in a harbor was no easy task, stealing it from under the eyes of some watchful sailor was even harder, but finally he managed to find such a length.

He knew how to tie up a prisoner in such a manner that the rope formed manacles and a noose around the neck. If the prisoner attempted to run or shimmy out of the manacles, the noose would begin to close. He was going to enjoy watching Jamal walk the whole way back to Jerusalem behind Talimar, led along on the line like some slave, or beaten dog. The man had figuratively done the same to him; it was only fair that he do it back literally.

Once back at his shaded vantage point he rewound the rope into a neat coil and tied up its loose ends so the arrangement would not undo. With that done he hung it on the pommel of his sword at his side.

Hours more passed and the sun was beginning to sink over the water, painting it a myriad of different shades, the fishing vessels began to return with their laden nets and caskets. Men began to appear from the city, all dressed in the fineries of merchants. Some simply strolled along the harbor, enjoying the air. Others seemed busier, walking with intent to their ships, busied with their scribes who were avidly discussing ledgers and transactions and the goods they had purchased and sold.

Altair spotted a small group of three men approaching along the main road, they were talking avidly between themselves, but that group was not as interesting to him as the man slouching behind them.

The first clue to the man's identity was his heavily bandaged right hand, clasped into a fist and carried almost club-like at his side. The other was the walk; despite him dragging his feet there was pride set into the man's carriage. The man wore beige robes and a hood drawn over his head, but it was undoubtedly Jamal.

Altair got to his feet and melted into the shadows of the alley that was next to the bench. It was time to make his move, and he had a few seconds to decide how to separate Jamal from his companions. There was a couple of ways; odds were the merchants did not know that Jamal was a wanted man. They would not raise a ruckus against someone armed. If they were paid in advance they would not care that they had received the money, but the cargo itself was detained in port. No merchant worth anything refused essentially free money.

Experience told Altair that Jamal had not paid these men in advance, his ploy in Jerusalem told Altair enough about Jamal to know that this man would sink to the lowest, most dishonorable tactics to achieve his goal. Still, the merchants likely wouldn't protest much if their passenger was suddenly unable to join them on their voyage.

As the group was passing by the alley, Altair emerged with his hand on the pommel of his sword, and full intention of drawing it if these men protested. "Jamal!" he called.

The man stopped and turned to face him, for a moment Altair caught a look of surprise on his features. The merchants stopped too, curious as all men in the profession of handling money were.

"Do you know this ruffian?" One of them asked.

"He is the one I was talking about," Jamal replied.

"You will not stand in my way," Altair stated, sparing the merchants a glare. If he had been at all petty they would not have lived down calling him a ruffian when the real ruffian stood by their side.

"I did not expect you to do the easiest thing and wait for me by the ship," Jamal stated. "You surprise me Altair. Perhaps you finally learned a thing or two of patience."

"Be quiet," Altair replied, not in the mood for another dose of Jamal's foul accusations and venomous words. Jamal predictably opened his mouth to say something more but Altair attacked first, punching the traitor in the gut, winding him instantly. A second, more powerful blow to the same place knocked him out cold.

The merchants recoiled in surprise at the speed of his attack and stepped away.

"What has he done?" one asked some trepidation in his voice.

Altair reached for the rope at his side, "That is none of your business. The traitor will get his dues."

The merchants exchanged glances, as if silently discussing among themselves the details of the case. Altair ignored them in favor of tying Jamal up while he was stunned and unable to resist.

"We best leave," one of the other merchant voiced.

"Agreed, if he is indeed a traitor to whomever, we best not associate with such filth. It is very bad for business."

The three of them turned and walked off without further protest, moving to their ship which was buzzing with activity. Already sailors were checking lines and preparing the sails for cast off.

Altair watched them for a long moment, deciding there was reason why associating with merchants was difficult. Their one loyalty was to themselves and their purses. When the three men vanished back on board of their ship without raising an alarm Altair went back to checking the knots he had made. He let Jamal have a good slack on the noose, just in case, and after checking the knots for the last time he kicked the man awake.

* * *

In Masyaf, Sandy was working in the kitchens again, enjoying a bit of relaxation away from both Antonio and Faisal, who had fought that morning again. The conversation in the kitchen was at full loud buzz, and before long Fatima approached her with the batter which would go into the oven for the midday meal. "Did you hear what Miriam said?" the girl asked.

"Hear what?" Sandy wondered, glancing back at Fatima from her task of washing vegetables. The mistress of the kitchen would not let her actually cook anything, so she was relegated to these smaller tasks, and she did them diligently. Sandy considered these shifts of working in the kitchens as her volunteer work, she enjoyed it but didn't want to overstay her welcome, so she visited only every other day for a couple of hours. The mistress of the kitchen was always glad for an extra set of hands, but she never forced her to stay.

"Miriam heard from her husband that Jamal is giving Altair quite the chase around the kingdom."

Sandy frowned and Fatima kept going, walking to the stone ovens where she left the batter with the bread makers. If the rumor had come from Miriam it was dependable, if only slightly exaggerated by the woman's theatrical nature. Miriam was the kind of woman who stuck her nose into other people's affairs as if they were her own. She was older, at twenty-eight, and had a distinct presence; nothing could remain secret around her. Last time Sandy had talked to her, the Egyptian woman had boasted verbosely about her marriage to one of the higher ranking assassins of the fort. She probably considered herself of some standing now, like some lady married to a favored knight of some lord. At least important enough so that she could freely pass this kind of information into general knowledge.

Fatima came back and picked up a knife, joining Sandy in the peeling of the carrots she had washed. "Supposedly," the girl began quietly, "He chased Jamal to Damascus and from there to Jerusalem."

"Well that is a bit of a run around," Sandy agreed.

"I am getting a little bit worried for him," the girl whispered.

Sandy averted her gaze and went back to her carrots, _me too_ she wanted to say, but decided it was best if she didn't. Fatima had seemingly gotten over whatever she had heard previous that made her question things, there was no use stirring that fire up again. She figured if there was someone Altair needed; it was a gentle soul like Fatima. The girl was the epitome of humbleness; the very image of the perfect period woman, or as close to it as Sandy reasoned she was, going by her own meager understanding of things.

Fatima was not one to partake in idle gossip on a regular basis, she only seemed to pass it along when it mattered to her personally, and that wasn't all that often. She was not one to express herself in any particularly strong manner either. Instead she made a point of being nearly invisible. However, that wasn't to say Fatima didn't have a presence, she had strength of a unique kind, her kindness was unmatched and gentleness got her a certain respect. Most importantly, her heart was very much in the right place. Whereas other women were always on guard and always cautious, ready at a moment's notice to let their spite show, Fatima seemingly had none to speak of.

"What are you two conspiring about?" Another of the girls approached. Setting down more vegetables to be washed and peeled. Sandy glanced over her shoulder, finding none other than Rahel, or as Sandy liked to call her privately 'Mini-Miriam'. At sixteen years old she was a coquette of some standing, and already just as bad as Miriam on her good days, twice worse on her bad.

The two women often worked side by side in the kitchen, serving as town criers to every rumor they happened to overhear in the fort or in the market. Sandy was sure half of their gossip was ill-gotten through eavesdropping over the men. She wouldn't be surprised if Miriam even used pillow-talk time to weasel information out of her husband.

"Nothing of the any importance," she replied a little more defensively than she would've liked to.

"Rahel, leave them to the vegetables!" The mistress of the kitchen called from her rounds, just as the girl opened her mouth to ask questions.

Sandy sighed in relief when Rahel was forced to leave them alone. It wasn't that she disliked Rahel or Miriam, but the two were difficult to deal with. She felt like she had to watch herself at all times, one wrong word choice, one wrong insinuation or suggestions and they'd be all over her like this century's version of Fox News.

"I do hope _he's_ alright," Fatima lapsed back into their previous conversation.

Sandy glanced at her from the corner of her eye and smiled. "He probably is," she replied, "I mean… he is who he is, right? I don't think his reputation as Masyaf's finest is in any way a sham."

"You're right of course," Fatima beamed, suddenly noticeably cheered up, "but still- I cannot help but worry a little."

"Worrying for a person you care for is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged," Sandy assured her.

Fatima lowered her face and a second later, a scarlet blush spread upon her features and would not leave for a few tense minutes. "I envy you," she stated afterwards, looking up again.

"Me?" Sandy asked, surprised, her knife paused in her hand as she looked at the woman at her side.

"You have so much more confidence than I do. I cannot even speak to him, and yet you-"

"Oh." Sandy murmured, resuming her task. "Well to be quite honest, he's not the easiest person to speak to. Believe it or not, even I swallow my tongue when he starts glaring. He can be _very_ intimidating, so I don't think you lack confidence, he's just… scary at times."

"Still, he talks to you."

"And sometimes I wish he _wouldn't_ talk to me, you know, because some of the things he utters come off as very insensitive. Of course, I know he has no ill intentions when he speaks the truth, and he is right most of the time, but he is utterly tactless about it. He is hardly the perfect man, Fatima."

"Is there a perfect man?" the girl wondered.

The thought struck Sandy instantly as a very good question. Was there ever a perfect man on this planet? Such men only seemed to exist only in horribly written teen fiction, and then they proved to be quite boring. No matter the century it looked to her that men were always to be the objects of the unsatisfied words of women. "You got me there. I don't think a perfect man exists at all."

"Then a woman must settle for a good man," Fatima continued.

"Those can be hard to find, and half the time they are already taken."

"To everything there is an exception," Fatima murmured, bundling the carrots she had peeled into her arms and carrying them over to the two women minding the stew which would be served for today's dinner. It was a slow-cooking meal and wouldn't be ready for midday. Sandy finished peeling her own and gathered them up, following her friend. Her mind lingered on the matter of Fatima's words. Why did the girl bring up these things? Did she still suspect something? Could Fatima's own feeling be nothing more than a crush? Could it be that she would be willing to step back like that?

* * *

Altair did not sleep much that night, it was nearly impossible to sleep when all of his senses were on high alert in the presence of the almost tangible hate radiating off Jamal. He had dozed only when he had been sure Jamal had fallen asleep due to his own tiredness, and now with the first rays of sunlight he woke to find the man in much the same position as he had left him.

The knots he had tied made escaping impossible for a man with a useless arm, it seemed that Jamal could not open his right fist, never mind use that hand. It made him a relatively easy prisoner to keep. Right now he was apparently buried in thought and Altair knew that he was still scheming, still working on ploy after ploy to get out of this problem.

Within the hour they were past the gates of Yaffa, Altair riding Talimar, and Jamal walking behind the horse, fastened to the horn of the saddle by the length of rope. The line forced Jamal to walk close behind Talimar, close enough that if he did anything to spook or annoy the beast he would be within the range of the horse's rear hooves.

The whole day they walked at a pace in which the man could keep up, resting only briefly and infrequently. The horse was not tiring as much since he did not need to trot uphill, and that was Altair's main concern. As far as Jamal went, he was almost like baggage, and baggage did not have any rights to complain.

By evening they were close to one third of the way back to Jerusalem and Altair found a sheltered crevice in the rocks flanking the road to make camp for the night. He had tied Jamal to a boulder in such a manner that he could not slip the noose off the rock while sitting with his back to it.

For his own comfort Altair made a fire to ward off the dangers of the road, the snakes, scorpions, and spiders that inhabited this region. The fire was far enough from Jamal that he could not use its heat to burn through the ropes, nor would he enjoy its protective halo of heat. After having a small bit of dinner Altair got comfortable on a rock to doze.

"So, I assume you will not walk me like this all the way to Masyaf," Jamal began just when Altair had been close to drifting off to sleep, waking him instantly. Something told the elite assassin that it was the entire point.

"I do not plan to subject myself to your vile presence for that long," Altair replied. Walking from Jerusalem to Masyaf would take seven days; he was simply not willing to tolerate Jamal for that long. Not with the occasional crusaders on the road and one of their fortresses being so close to the road he typically took. He knew that whatever patience he had called upon to stop himself from murdering the man would not last that long.

"In a rush?" Jamal asked.

"I do not plan letting you rest during the march tomorrow either, so I suggest you sleep now," Altair warned.

"Of course, of course," the man murmured darkly, chuckling at whatever he had found funny. Altair did not know what it was and he did not care to know what depraved things this maniac was thinking about.

There were no further interruptions of his sleep that night, and in the morning the march resumed. It was going much too slow for Altair's liking but he only had to bear with it until Jerusalem. Malik would probably be able to procure a wagon for the transport of the prisoner, and perhaps an escort that would allow him to actually sleep. The whole day he had been aware that Jamal was planning something. He seemed lost in thought half the time.

It was just before the nightfall that the blow of the man's plot fell. Altair had been setting up camp again when Jamal had given him a look that spoke of something on his mind. "I have been thinking," he announced calmly. "Perhaps I had been rash with deeming you to be a _shaitan_; after all, you have been loyal to the brotherhood up to the point, if not an exemplary member."

Altair made no sign that he heard the man's words; he reasoned that he should let Jamal speak; this latest ploy just might just amuse him for a little while and break the tedium of the march.

"That jinni, she's at the root of it all, everything began when she arrived. I'm beginning to think that she is not a jinni, but a _Lilitu_ demon, and that even you -the greatest among us- had not been strong enough to resist her charms."

Altair listened and tried his best not to break out laughing. Jamal was at the end of his line of lies to have come up with that kind of farfetched story. "If she is, then you must be the most pious of us all to have resisted her," he stated calmly, trying to hide the sarcasm in his tone.

"Perhaps her charms do not work on those who can see her nature," Jamal supposed, sounding vaguely hopeful, much to Altair's hidden enjoyment.

"Enough of this, Jamal." he got to his feet. "I am tired of you trying to prove that she is not human."

"You still defend her!" Jamal exclaimed.

"She is _innocent_, so I will defend her. Or have you forgotten what the creed stands for?" This seemed to silence Jamal and Altair thought that for a moment he had won the argument, but then Jamal's expression changed and his eyes blazed.

"The creed, that's precisely it! She must know that as long as she is seen as innocent she will not be harmed by the brotherhood. I am certain that is why the witch approached you, she is seeking sustenance and sanctuary in a place where men are plentiful and where she would be protected."

"Be quiet!" Altair commanded as he rounded on Jamal, feeling a surge of anger within him.

"Don't you see? It explains everything," Jamal argued. "That woman is a harlot of the worst kind, masca-"

Jamal didn't get to finish as Altair had decided at that point that he had heard enough. He took three quick steps to close the distance between them and punched Jamal with enough force to cause his head to hit the rock behind him, shift his jaw out of its socket, and split a lip, drawing ample blood. The sensation of shifting bone under his knuckles had felt oddly satisfying at that moment, as if he had done something that should have been done a long time ago.

Jamal attempted to utter something, but could not through the pain of his jaw. Altair stood over him for a long moment, smirking triumphantly, satisfied that Jamal could no longer defame the creed or spout vicious words against an innocent. Finally, seeing that Jamal seemed to have gotten the point and settled down, Altair moved back to his sleeping roll and was quickly dozing off, despite the vicious glare leveled on him. The satisfaction of knowing that Jamal would not be talking at all for a while after that attack made Altair impervious to anything else the man might try.

The next day the march to Jerusalem was quiet, mostly because Jamal had lost the ability to speak to the swelling of his injured jaw, which he set back in its place, even with his hands tied as they were.

By sundown they sighted Jerusalem and were past its gates within the hour. Jamal's inability to speak proved to be a blessing in another way when he wasn't able protest the lie Altair had to feed the gate guards to explain the manacles and noose that bound him. Altair had to resort to calling Jamal a runaway slave that had resisted capture by him, the loyal retainer of their master. The guards had been tired and bored enough to actually buy it and allow them passage into the city.

Leaving Talimar yet again at the stables, Altair led Jamal down the streets to the bureau, and they had to use the heavily underused door of the bureau since Jamal could not climb to the yard entrance. Malik had opened the door vaguely annoyed, but his expression changed as soon as he saw who it was, then he rushed the two inside and closed the door behind them.

They tied Jamal to the beams of the windowless storage room of the bureau which served for such purposes of hiding people, prisoners or not, making sure to bar the door thoroughly. It was then, with the man securely in his temporary cell that Altair allowed himself to relax for the first time in days. He never wanted to repeat those three days of utter hell again.

"Malik, I want a cart and an escort, if I spend one more day alone with him I'll kill him," he stated quite bluntly, surprising the bureau keeper.

"What did he do?" Malik wondered.

"It's what he _said_," Altair replied.

"His jaw is-" Malik paused as realization dawned. "I see. A cart will not be a problem, but give me a day for that, it's not easy to procure it on short notice. As for the escort, I think two of my best men will be enough."

"Good," Altair replied, already eyeing the doorway to the side yard where a sea of pillows awaited him and with it good sleep for the first time in six nights.

"Go rest," Malik voiced, "and congratulations."

Altair didn't pay him any attention as he entered the yard and began to remove his arsenal for sleep. He was so tired that he didn't even want dinner. Congratulations were still a little premature; this wasn't an assassination that he had just completed. He knew full well that during the long trip to Masyaf things could still go wrong. He would not consider this mission complete until Jamal was kneeling in front of Al Mualim, begging in vain for his pathetic life. Altair still intended to demand the right to execute the man with his own hands, maybe after letting the woman have a blow at him, it seemed right that she should get a chance to pay Jamal back for her injury. After that, the traitor's life was his, and he was going to enjoy sinking his hidden blade into the man's foul black heart.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Yaffa: This is the Arabic pronunciation for Jaffa, which is a small ancient city now part of modern day 'Tel Aviv Yafo' municipality in Israel.

Salah ad-Din: The proper pronunciation of the Saracen leader known to westerners as Saladin.

Fox News: This one needs a bit of explanation to my international readers. This is a channel in USA/Canada that is more tabloid than news. They never seem to get their facts straight and right, and they routinely misinform. They also blow everything they get their hands on out of proportion.

The Fortress Altair thinks of: Known now as _Krak des Chevaliers_, a crusader fortress in Syria that is maybe 30 miles or so south and a little west of Masyaf. At the time of the third crusade it was one of the forts held by the _Knights Hospitaller_.

Lilitu Demons: According to Sumerian tradition, these manifestations were the cause of erotic dreams men may experience, making them to be similar to the succubus.

**Director's Notes:**

I hope you liked this chapter; it is a little bit of a cool down after the fast paced action of the previous chapter. It ended up being a little 'montage heavy' because it condensed essentially a week into seventeen pages, but again there is a method to my madness.


	12. Altair's Return

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

**

* * *

Chapter XII**: Altair's Return

It was July ninth on the calendar and Sandy found it difficult to remain focused on any one thing for long. With the deadline of Akka's fall less than three days away her nerves were unusually frayed and she decided to work it off by spending longer hours in the kitchens, busying herself among the vegetables and the idle gossip of the other maids.

It was during the midday meal, when she was helping with the plating and serving of food that she began to catch snippets of news carried as a static buzz on the air of the hall. However it wasn't an option to stop and listen closer to the various discussions of the men as they drank their tea and enjoyed their meal.

The oddity of her even being among the women to serve the food went almost utterly unnoticed. She had become a common sight to the men in the past weeks, no longer rousing any curiosity. Sandy was convinced they probably saw her as just another maid with some status, though not a lot of money to her name. Only Faisal's teasing and Antonio's following gaze from the head table were indications that anyone truly cared.

The former was easily dealt with a light whack of the back of the head as she passed, causing a minor uproar of riotous laughter at the trainee table. Comments from the older, yet still uninitiated boys flew that Faisal was now a woman's plaything, causing the fifteen year old to become defensively indignant, but something told Sandy that he was reveling in the attention regardless.

With the last of her plates served to the juniors, and that was her route as the mistress of the kitchen would not let her serve the older men, Sandy took her own share and walked to the head table to join Antonio. She discovered that he had not touched a sliver of his food in waiting for her.

Ignoring his odd chivalry, she sat down and picked up her spoon. "Tony, did you hear the buzz? What's going on that the high ranks are so avidly talking about it? I couldn't quite hear."

"News arrived from our bureau in Akka," he stated. "Richard's army had breached the outer walls; the city's fall seems imminent."

"That's…" Sandy wanted to say terrible, but she knew it would happen all along, and she thought false remorse was worse than unfeeling callousness. Some part of her was actually oddly glad for how things were happening. It meant that history would run its course as it should, even with her being there to see it happen.

"I have also been thinking of something you spoke of, that one time," Tony spoke up.

"Oh?" Sandy asked around her tea, she had gotten used to how strong it was and had begun to enjoy its strong flavor.

"I have been observing Faisal for the past two weeks and have become convinced that you were right to forgo judging him. He does not seem to be permanently afflicted with Jamal's madness."

"He's a good kid, a little loud at times, a little arrogant at others, he'll get himself killed one day by teasing the wrong person, but he's a good kid," Sandy murmured.

"I am beginning to see that myself," Antonio smiled. "You treat him much like an elder sister would, and he seems to bask in it."

"He loves attention, that's his vice," Sandy argued.

"I have been thinking of training him," Antonio stated bluntly.

Sandy's eyebrows shot up in surprise and for a long moment she watched him, appraising the truth of his statement, but she could not find any sort of lie in his features. "That's great!" she exclaimed when she realized that Antonio was not pulling her leg. "I think you should, most definitely."

"Then I will," Antonio grinned roguishly.

"Go easy on him then, he's probably a little rusty now."

"He will have to pick up a few new things. Jamal preferred knives, but I do my best work with a sword."

Sandy smiled and glanced at Faisal who was utterly oblivious to the great machinations that he was at the center of at the moment. The boy was arguing with an older trainee over something or other that could not be overheard over the din of the hall's conversation.

Sandy turned back to Antonio and patted his forearm fondly, "If I can be bold enough to add my observation, since I have sparred with him…" she glanced back at Faisal for a moment. "You might want to break him out of that habit of his. Jamal was right handed and he taught Faisal to fight right-handed, but look now, he's using a knife in his left just as well. Teach him to fight with both; it will do him much good."

Antonio watched Faisal for a long moment before he looked back at her with a smile, "You do have a sharp eye. I will take your advice into consideration."

Sandy smiled and turned to her meal and it wasn't long before they were eating in comfortable silence. Sandy was halfway through her meat when Fatima appeared from the kitchens. Sandy watched her as the girl made a beeline for the head table, seemingly set on something or other. She leaned over the seats between her and Antonio and smiled apologetically to the elite assassin before whispering in Sandy's ear.

"Sandy, Rahel, Miriam, and I have a couple things in the kitchen that we would like you to have." She whispered.

"Oh?" Sandy asked.

"Come when you finish your meal, there is no rush." With that said the shying girl turned around and left without further explanation.

* * *

In Jerusalem, Altair had woken late that morning, sleeping uninterrupted almost until noon. Malik excused the lapse as having been too engrossed in some latest reports, but Altair suspected that he had let him sleep in. An hour later a cart arrived, bound to a tired-looking beast that Malik insisted would last to Masyaf. With it came two of his men, one mounted on his own horse, and one driving the cart. Jamal was loaded on board and securely bound to one of the cart's wall frames. The procession finally set off for Masyaf around two hours past noon, disguised as a small caravan of a relatively unknown merchant with his two bodyguards. It worked to give Altair's lie some unexpected credence in the eyes of the gate guards who had smirked and laughed at the prisoner upon seeing him.

The man driving the cart was dressed the part of the merchant and aside from their prisoner the vehicle was loaded up with some basic goods that could be reasonably procured. A few small carpets, pottery, and a large amphora of olive oil; Hidden inside the rolled up carpets were also some new oversized charts Malik made that would be updates to those in Masyaf. Altair was looking foreword to a relatively calm three day return trip to Masyaf, which would coincide with the expected fall of Akka as he understood it.

* * *

On the eleventh of July, a rumor filtered through the halls of Masyaf that Altair was on the way back with Jamal in toe and was to be expected the next day. Sandy tried to keep a dumb smile off her face, but nevertheless her spirits had been lifted, though still not enough to reverse the down-turn caused by the anxiousness of the next day.

She sat on a crate in the corner of the courtyard watching Antonio drill Faisal with his new practice sword. The elite had done well on his word and took up the fifteen-year-old as a pupil. Currently Faisal was annoying Antonio with the simple fact that Jamal had taught him the basics of swordsmanship, but the boy had simply chosen not to use it as his previous teacher had not relied heavily upon it himself. The little nuisance had let Antonio explain things, only to say 'I knew all that before' with a very happy smile on his face that visibly ground on Antonio's patience.

Right now, she could tell that the boy had some skill and talent. He was readily picking up the theory of the attacks he was taught and he needed only minor corrections to fix his errors of stance and movement. Of course learning the theory of it was only a third of the training, he would need to apply the skills he was learning in the practice rink with the other boys his age, and though it would take a while Sandy could tell Faisal would do well with the training.

For herself, she paid attention to the lessons as a way to teach herself what to expect if she was ever again at the wrong end of a sword and there was no one around her to keep her safe. Sandy didn't like being a damsel in distress; she would always prefer to know a thing or two of defending herself to relying in any manner on others, even if they were trustworthy, like Antonio, or Altair.

Her mind lapsed away from the sight of the elite and the trainee and their work, lingering on the thought of the other elite assassin in her life. It was at moments like these, when she wasn't doing anything in particular that any thought of Altair caused her thoughts to fixate on him and him alone, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else around her. With his expected return tomorrow she was eager to see him again, fact was that she was missing him and would not lie to herself by denying it.

The twelfth of July would be a day short of three weeks that he was gone, and the thirteenth would be her month anniversary of traveling back in time. It was hardly an occasion to celebrate, but there was still a strange sense of significance in the date. That feeling of importance perturbed her, what was it? Was it merely just the passage of so many set days on a calendar, or was it something else? She couldn't quite tell and it frustrated her. Banishing her latest episode of Altair-created distraction away, she sighed silently and resumed watching Antonio and Faisal work.

The hours of the day passed slowly, after Antonio called the training done for the day she left for the kitchens, set on keeping herself busy at all times. In part to pass the hours and in part to avoid any more lapses of excess thought. The mistress of the kitchen had to kick her out after dinner, citing that she had spent too much time in the kitchen. After that, Sandy joined Miriam and Rahel at the baths and tried to listen to all the gossip the two women imparted to her, she honestly tried, but nothing seemed to stick.

When she felt her skin begin to prune Sandy made an excuse to leave the two women, citing some light-headedness due to the hot air of the middle chamber. She honestly wanted to go to sleep and sleep for the next sixteen hours if at all possible. Tomorrow was set to be a long, painful day of waiting, both for Altair's return, and the arrival of news from Akka.

She awoke surprisingly well rested despite the nerves of the previous evening and went about her daily business with most of her usual energy, joining Antonio and Faisal in the courtyard for their now-usual training session. She sat there in the shadows of the fortress' walls unbothered until noon, when a man approached her from inside the fort. Before he could announce the reason of his approach, Antonio was there, having called a pause to the training to approach them.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The master wishes to speak with the lady," the man replied.

"It is time then," Sandy murmured, getting up to her feet.

"I will come with you," Antonio volunteered, sheathing his sword.

Sandy shook her head, "No, this is a matter that only two people in this fortress know of, the master, and Altair. I'm sorry Tony, but this is the way it needs to be." She followed the servant man inside.

The route to the master's study was familiar by now and Sandy felt surprisingly little nervousness with the appointment. She stood in front of the now familiar table as the servant announced her and was subsequently sent away by the master. The elder spent a long moment scrutinizing her, as if seeking for some trace of excess emotion, but Sandy did not let much past her façade, trying her best to present an air of utter calm and bravery. Sandy thought for all of a second that maybe telling Antonio to remain behind hadn't been a good idea, maybe it was worth having a third person in the confidence of this kind of thing. Then she banished the thought, she shouldn't be relying on others to be her security blanket.

"It would seem," the master begun, "that you are indeed either a time traveler, or at least a seer. Akka is by now in Richard's hands, as you have predicted it would be."

"I do not make claims of being a seer, sir. I stand by my claim that I have traveled eight hundred years back in time."

"Then you must know how the rest of his crusade will play out," the master stated.

"I would be lying if I said I did not know some particulars, but I will not reveal them, not even to save my life."

"I had hoped you would say as much."

It took a moment for Sandy to realize that his half veiled request had been a test of some kind, and that she had actually managed to pass it without realizing she was being tested at all. However it eluded her as exactly what was being tested, certainly it couldn't be her bravery, because she didn't feel all that brave at the moment.

"You have proven yourself an ally, first through the legitimacy of your claim, and second with the assistance you have lent in your investigation."

"Thank you sir," Sandy replied.

"As such, I feel it is fair that your assistance is recognized," the man pointed to the white bundle of cloth on the desk in front of him. "This is a token of an ally. As long as you wear it, the brotherhood will recognize you as one of its informants, one to be given the same respect as any other source of information we choose to associate with."

Sandy nodded, for all of a moment unknowing what to say.

"However, do not think we will not be watching. You are already privy to more of the workings of Masyaf than most informants. Should you choose to betray us, punishment will be swift."

Sandy nodded her head again as a series of images, each one more gruesome than the previous, played through her head. She didn't say it, but she thought it, she'd be a complete idiot to do anything to warrant 'punishment' from a clan of assassins. Whom would she betray them to? The crusaders? They'd think her a witch and burn her at the stake even before she could receive any punishment from the assassins. Failing that, she never wanted to see Antonio's sword or Altair's hidden blade turned on her in righteous fury. She wouldn't want to put them in the position of having to end the life of someone they had considered a friend in any form.

Without further prompting she approached the table and picked up the white bundle of cloth. From one look she could tell it was a cloak made of white linen, a very simple, very cheap garment that would never the less serve a practical purpose in warding the sun's intensity in this hot climate.

"Thank you for your kindness, sir," she murmured, bowing her head.

"There is one last matter. Will you be staying here? Or returning to Jerusalem?" the master asked.

Sandy thought for a moment, wondering how best to reply to that one. Truth of the matter was that she wanted to stay with Altair. In a selfish sort of way she felt comfortable with him, as if knowing instinctually that she would be safe in his proximity. He probably wouldn't share the same sentiments, she was sure he'd be quick to call her a burden again, but she wouldn't hold it against him. If she was to go away, where would she go? She had no real purpose in this time and her knowledge of the period was so pitiable that she would stick out too much and likely end up in trouble.

"I would wish to stay here. I like to think that I am of some help to the mistress of the kitchen at least, and I have made a couple friends among the workers. I like to think I have made friends among some of the men as well."

"Yes, Antonio seems fond of you," the master noted with some amusement. "Very well, you may stay here as long as you wish."

"Thank you, sir." Sandy bowed again.

"Go now, our discussion is done."

Sandy nodded, and backed away before turning around and leaving, trying to keep the nervous stiffness out of her walk. She purposefully took the first flight of stairs slowly, controlling herself to the last moment. At the foot of the stairs to the second level she saw Antonio and Faisal, both looked a little surprised to see the white bundle of cloth in her hands.

"Well that's that then," she stated even before they could ask. "It would seem I got myself a promotion of sorts, and I didn't even know I was employed." She let the bundle unfold, revealing for the first time the simple white, hooded, sleeved cloak. It was much like an oversized robe clearly tailored to be worn by someone taller and wider at the shoulders than her. The sleeves were so long that she was sure her hands would be entirely invisible in them.

"Congratulations," Antonio stated.

Faisal's expression caught her eye; he looked for a moment like he had something to say but had decided against it. Sandy smiled, "What's the matter Faisal? No usual comments?"

"I have to respect you now," he stated plainly.

Sandy shrugged and pulled on her new cloak, it fit comfortably right over her leather jacket and concealed her body almost entirely, the sleeves were too long, and the lower hem fell almost to her ankles, where it should have been mid-calf, but she liked it enough already. Suddenly she decided that she wanted to show the cloak to Fatima, maybe boast just a tad bit.

"Come Faisal, back to your training," Antonio stated, taking hold of the trainee's shoulder and almost forcibly nudging him back towards the door. Sandy watched him go, and wondered what that was all about. He hadn't said a word to her past his congratulations, and instinct told her that there was suddenly something bothering him. She could only hope that Antonio would tell her what it was in time; in the mean time she proceeded to the kitchens where she hoped to find Fatima to tell her the auspicious news.

Sandy ended up staying in the kitchens for a couple hours until she decided that it was close enough to sunset that she should move on. If she knew the traveling habits of Altair even half as well as she thought she did, she expected him to arrive just before, or shortly after sunset. She made her way to the stables, fully intending to boss the stable boys into saddling Nyx so she could ride out to meet him, when she spotted Antonio. He was leaning on the stable wall, his arms folded over his broad chest. Seeing her approach he bowed his head and pushed off the wall.

"You will find your mare fully saddled, but I will ride with you," he announced.

"How did you know?" Sandy wondered.

Antonio gave her a stare from the shadow of his hood. It wasn't hard noticing that there was a peculiar expression on his face, something a little different from the normal warmth. He was bothered, but trying his best not to show it. "_Senorita_, you give me too little credit. I am of the elite assassins of Masyaf. That alone should tell you enough." he stated with all the pomp and pride such a title bestowed.

"I'm sorry Tony, sometimes I forget. Let's go, we'll only ride out a little past the stone arches."

Antonio nodded his head and followed her inside the stables.

Barely five minutes later they were saddled and galloping in single file through the winding path that led from the gates of Masyaf to the stone arches. It was the first time in three weeks that she was actually on horseback, but the brief riding tutorial she had gotten from Altair three weeks before, seemingly a lifetime ago, had stuck with her, and she had no trouble controlling Nyx. The mare seemed to follow Rayo as she normally followed Talimar.

They stopped at the arches, the spot offered a decent view down the road, but there was no sign of anyone on it yet. Sandy raised the hood of her cloak against the glare of the sun as she peered down the road. She idly wondered if she wasn't ridiculously early for this, but decided that she would wait until nightfall if it came to that. The minutes ticked by, and soon an hour elapsed. Sandy never removed her gaze from the road, but as the shadows lengthened and more time passed she began to think that it had been an utterly stupid idea to come out here. Before her rational mind could talk her into going back, she spotted them appearing from the haze. A small group led by a white-clad rider on a white horse, moving slowly along. The sight was enough to bring a large smile to her features.

Rayo snorting reminded her that she wasn't alone. Sandy glanced at Tony, his expression was perfectly blank as he watched the small procession approach, and as if feeling her gaze, he turned to spare her a glance that was encouraging, but otherwise cold.

It took the group five minutes to come abreast with them and Sandy instantly swung Nyx around, falling in place along side Altair. She didn't speak, conscious that they weren't alone, but she offered him a smile, which he saw, judging by the faint return grin. The silent exchange would do as greetings for now. She didn't speak even when the large group ascended the stairs to the master's study. Instead she fell back to the rear of the group with Antonio. The two men who arrived with Altair had to practically drag Jamal along, but Altair seemed to be satisfied, she could tell by the proud carriage in his stride.

Sandy became aware of Jamal's glare, which was focused on her. She tried not to bristle, but it was difficult with so much hate so clearly there.

"Master, I have returned with the traitor," Altair announced.

"Excellent." The master replied.

The two men brought Jamal foreword and forced him to kneel on the floor in front of the master's desk. The older man got up from his seat and rounded the table, keeping his gaze locked firmly on Jamal.

For the first time, Sandy saw something there that showed her that in all the interactions she had with the master of Masyaf, he had never been truly in his element. Gone now was the somewhat amused master, replaced by a man whom she had every right to fear should that particular look ever turn on her.

"Speak traitor, explain your deeds," he stated.

"There is nothing to explain to those who will not listen," Jamal replied.

"Very well," he looked first at the two men that held Jamal in place. Obeying some wordless command, the two grabbed Jamal by the shoulders and pulled him to his feet. The master nodded and before Sandy could inhale, the business-like look had turned to her and Antonio. For all of a split second she was sure that there would be reprimands handed out for her curiosity, but the look softened.

"Antonio, Cassandra, seeing as his actions have harmed you directly, you are allowed to exact your dues," he announced.

Antonio placed a hand on her shoulder and Sandy stepped foreword, glancing first at Altair, who was watching her, to the other two men, whose eyes were locked on her as well, though colored with surprise. She reasoned that they did not think there was a woman under the oversized cloak she wore. Then she glanced at Jamal, receiving his daring smirk. Finally she turned to the master and spoke with the most confidence, yet humility she could muster given the situation.

"With all due respect, sir, with my understanding of his imminent punishment- I will abstain from exacting any such dues; his just punishment will be enough to satisfy me. Truthfully, I hold no lingering anger towards him and his ignorant actions towards me."

"Very well," the master then turned to Antonio.

Sandy was keenly aware of Jamal's surprised expression. It was as if he had expected her to demand to execute him by her own hand, had wanted it, and she had robbed him of that pleasure. When she glanced at Altair; there was a look in his eyes that his hood hid from everyone but her. She wouldn't say he was surprised, but he did not expect her to denounce her dues, that much she could tell. She offered him a faint smile in the hopes of making sure he understood that she had meant every word she had spoken.

"By the lady's example I shall abstain as well. I consider my injury sustained in the line of duty; the lady's continued safety is enough for me," Antonio announced with pride in his tone.

Sandy's eyes flicked to him, and Antonio settled a hand on her shoulder. Sandy glanced away and felt her face begin to heat up. Was Antonio daft to be saying those kinds of things in front of so many ears? She could feel the gazes of everyone locked on her. Of them, there were two gazes in particular that felt like lead weights around her neck. Right at that moment she wanted nothing more than to melt into the stone floor.

"Master, I want the permission to carry out the sentence personally. Jamal had attacked my then-ward, he owes his life to me," Altair stated calmly.

Sandy looked up, all trace of embarrassment vanishing like the mist at the words that Altair spoke. What did he mean by 'then ward'?

"I expected you to request that, especially after the final report from Malik," the master moved back around his desk and sat down, "The sentence is yours to carry out."

"Come, _Senorita_, you needn't see this," Antonio stated calmly, taking Cassandra by the shoulders, but she didn't care much for this and shrugged his hands off.

"_Tony_, I said his punishment will be enough for me. I intend to see it carried out," she argued.

The sound of Altair's sword leaving its sheath rang in the silence, Sandy was perfectly aware of the surprised look on Antonio's face. The other two men, though ever silent were likewise surprised, and the master seemed amused again. Altair spared her a sideward glance, his eyebrows drawn in question that Sandy could almost read, as if it was written there in his eyes. She wanted to tell him that she was sure, but she didn't want others to know she could read Altair quite like that.

"I knew it. Beneath that false mercy and kindness there truly is a bloodthirsty _Lilitu_ demon," Jamal stated.

"No Jamal, I'm not a demon, and I am not a woman to faint at the sight of blood. Especially when it is drawn in the name of justice," Sandy replied, leveling an expressionless gaze on the man and keeping her voice in the closest proximally of Altair's chilled candor that she could muster on short notice.

Altair grinned, she could see it play across his face as he raised his sword, and a second later it was over. With a single powerful movement, he thrust the blade through Jamal's body. Sandy saw the Jamal's final glance at her and the victorious smirk on his lips with which he left the world, falling to his knees as Altair withdrew the sword. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't bothered. Seeing another person die before her eyes did not leave her unaffected, but she knew it had to be done. She didn't want so many people, and especially not Altair, to see her squirm at the sight of blood. If she had any selfish hope of persuading Altair to allow her to travel with him again, she knew she didn't want to look weak. She stared at Jamal's body until Altair blocked her view with his frame. She looked up and found herself on the receiving end of his familiar blank stare. A split second later he turned to glance back at the master.

"You three are dismissed," the master stated, looking their way before he turned to the two silent men.

Altair began down the stairs first and Sandy instinctively fell in step beside him. She was struggling with getting the sight of the body out of her mind; belatedly she realized that maybe it had been foolish watching that. She knew her odds of another nightmare were pretty high now, but what was done, was done. She could deal with a nightmare. At the foot of the stairs Altair paused and turned to look past her at Antonio, who up to the point had trailed behind them silently. Sandy glanced back as well, catching the faint shift in Antonio's expression as the two men squared off in a silent debate and glare match. Antonio's hand rested on the pommel of his sword and his eyes flickered to Sandy momentarily.

"I wish you a good night, _senorita_ Cassandra," he stated.

"You too, Tony." Sandy replied with a smile which he returned, though maybe at only half the normal enthusiasm. His eyes then flicked back to Altair and she caught the faintest hint of a glare that he sent to the younger elite before he passed him. She watched Antonio's retreating back as he vanished down the hall to the other wing of quarters situated opposite of the corridor that led to Altair's. Sandy folded her arms and wondered what it was that had been bothering Antonio the whole day. He did not seem to be getting over it in the least bit.

The clink of a sword alerted her that Altair was not waiting for her, so she fell in step next to him. Walking this close to Altair she kept her eyes keenly on his back, appraising his tunics. During the ride earlier she had thought his tunics were slightly different, but had counted it off as just a trick of the sun's last rays. Now being this close to him she was sure that his tunics were indeed different.

"Altair, can I ask a question?" she wondered.

"Go ahead."

"Jamal injured you, didn't he?" She asked bluntly.

"Do you claim to be a seer now?" Altair asked.

"Nothing of the sort, I'm just observant."

Altair stopped for a split of a second, turning to face her. They were some distance away from the door of his quarters, and yet in this hour this section of the second level was empty and quiet. "What have you observed then? What makes you think I'm in any way injured."

"Your tunics and cowl are new and whiter than last time I have seen you," Sandy reached up, gently feeling the material of his right sleeve between her fingers. "Your old ones were softened by wash and wear, these are rough. I would know the texture difference; I used your shoulder for a pillow." She grinned cheekily.

Altair's expression gave her nothing, and from that she knew he would not admit to anything just yet.

"Here's my thinking, run with me here. First, what would necessitate such a complete change other than blood stains? Blood is difficult to wash out, especially out of white cloth, even in _my_ time."

"Could have been Jamal's," Altair argued, his lips tipping in his infectiously roguish grin that hinted at him being definitely amused. He resumed his steady walk to his quarters then and Sandy followed; letting him enjoy his brief moment of thinking he trumped her.

"Don't try to hoodwink me." She began again when they were halfway to the door. "For a complete replacement of your tunics and cowl it would have to be a good amount of blood. There is no way it just _splattered_ on you; I've seen how you work. When we had first met you killed someone and returned to the bureau blood-free. Then there was the incident with the brigands, two of them, and yet again no splatter," she uttered in the flattest of tones she could present. To her this was a basic fact, yet as she looked up at him, she could tell that Altair still was not admitting to anything just yet. There was no doubt in her mind that she was right, so she would have to reason him into a corner. "I know precisely where your injury is too. It's not on your arms, because that would mean the replacement of your sleeved tunic alone. That leaves only your torso. Further, it's definitively not on your back, you would not turn your back to Jamal in a fight."

Altair stopped in front of the door and Sandy smiled as she turned to face him fully, "Combining the dimensions of your belt, what I know of Jamal's attacks, and the fact that your cowl was also damaged- The wound would have to be here." She placed her hand softly on the left side of his chest, two inches below the bottom edge of his cowl. Altair winced softly and Sandy knew she had it, a hole in one. Her touch lingered in place, barely ghosting over the material of his tunic, as if caressing and assuaging the pain she caused away.

"And the side?" he asked.

"Jamal's is right handed; he grabbed me with it both times. He would use his dominant hand for any attack that would be aimed to kill. The injury to his arm is another clue."

Altair took her hand in his and moved it away from his chest. "Was there a purpose to this exercise?" he asked.

"Not particularly, just- having my moment of glory. And I'm sorry if my touch hurt you. I bet it's still tender."

Altair did not pay her words any attention as he opened the door, and it was only through her agility that she managed to fleet by him into the room first. It was fully dark now and the moon was not yet high enough to peer through his window and bathe the room in its natural light. Sandy heard him discard the arsenal in its customary spot, partially on the table and draped over the chair and partially propped up on the wall next to it. She busied herself with fleeting around the room to collect some things she had carelessly left lying around.

"You've added a couple things," he noted.

"Oh! I hope you don't mind. They're really just basic creature comforts, hand-me-downs-" she turned around, meeting his gaze. "I better get some light going," she fleeted to table, pulling out her Zippo lighter, there she kept a single candle she used as navigation light.

She would have missed his faint movement had it not been utterly quiet otherwise, but then Sandy became acutely aware that Altair stood almost directly behind her. Suddenly she became nervous, she hadn't seen him in almost three weeks and there he was again. She wanted to say something, to restore the comfort she didn't realize she had lost, but what could she say?

"You made yourself at home," he stated.

"I just-" Sandy turned around, holding the candle and the lighter in her hands. "I'm sorry." The awkward silence lingered as she could feel his gaze roving over her frame, as if appraising whatever changes that happened in the three weeks of their separation. "I hope you're not mad, I mean… this is your room, and here I was, making myself at home in it."

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if suddenly bothered by some thought she wasn't privy to. It was a few moments before he spoke again. "I let you use it as you saw it fit."

Sandy smiled faintly and flipped the lid on her Zippo, "I've been meaning to say this when I rode out to meet you, but you know..." The first three times she rolled the lighter's flint wheel the lighter stubbornly refused to catch. It took her a moment to realize that she was jerking it too gently; the flint was not producing a spark. "Welcome back," she finished, chancing a glance at him briefly before she turned back to the stubborn Zippo. The fourth time she rolled the flint, the flame appeared and Sandy watched it for a short moment. "I missed you," she admitted as she put the lighter to the wick of the candle. When the wick caught she flicked the lighter's lid back over to extinguish it.

Looking up from the growing flame in her hands, she was momentarily startled to find that Altair had drawn half a step closer. The candle lent just enough light to pierce the shadow of his hood, allowing Sandy to see his expression warm just a touch, but like all the previous times she could not hold his gaze for long without becoming self-conscious. Her gaze drifted lower, stopping and locking on the peculiar set of his mouth. It was not his grin, but not the usual guarded tension either; instead it was relaxed and almost uncertain. Then just as quickly her eyes darted back up to meet his, realizing somewhat ashamedly that he had probably figured out where her gaze had drifted.

Her mouth was suddenly dry and she bit the inside of cheek in nervousness as she tried to will her body to stop reacting. The candle's flame warmed the air between them, and yet everything else felt chilly in the evening air. Suddenly she could not hope to tear her eyes away from his. A pleasant little tingle of some sort of energy that she had never felt before ran down her spine. In that instant the air at her back felt impossibly, uncomfortably cold, yet her whole body felt hot. Her traitorous heart chose that moment to stir from a seemingly dormant state, thrumming painfully within her ribcage, only to almost stop cold as Altair smiled. Faintly enough that the expression did not reach his eyes, and yet it was more powerful than his amused grins.

Just as quickly as the smile appeared, it vanished like a desert mirage, and he looked away, releasing her body from the spell of his gaze, allowing Sandy to exhale a breath she did not realize she had been holding. Her heart picked up pace, hammering in a strange anticipation, yet her whole body seemed frozen in place. Thoughts unbidden surfaced from her subconscious mind, her whole consciousness acknowledged the powerful attraction she had just experienced. The candle sputtered in her hands, forgotten. This realization of the feeling and their sheer intensity surprise her, leaving her wondering how it came to be. At the same time it all terrified her to the core.

She set the candle down on the table and purposefully made her way to her small chest of hand-me-downs that she had put right below the window, deeming it the least obstructive corner of the room. The sound of the faint rustle of cloth told her that he had begun his nightly ritual of getting ready for bed. She remained where she was, holding her 'new' sleeping chemise as she tried to will her ears to go deaf. Her body was still hyperaware of everything, she didn't need her eyes to know what was going on behind her, her ears supplied all the raw data and her mind was all too quick to conjure up an image. Setting down the nightgown, she picked up her bundle of bathing things. The air in the room felt suffocating, she felt like she had to get away, now, go and cool off. "I'll be back, it's my bath time," she uttered, and with her eyes closed dashed out of the room. Over the three weeks she had pretty much paced out the entire room and could almost navigate it blind, which suddenly came in handy.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Burning as the Stake: In the 12th century this actually wasn't the practice, Sandy is kind of freaking out a little there. The gist however is true; she probably would've been persecuted by zealous religious officials.

**Director's Notes:**

This chapter is a little longer than any previous, but I would not call it the two hour special, because it's not long enough for that. I hope you liked the little bit of symbolic romance at the end. I do love torturing Sandy, in case it's not any more obvious.


	13. The New Job

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XIII**_: The New Job

Sandy returned to the quarters an hour and a half after running out, she felt a little bit better but still not fully calm after what had happened. Seeing no candle light flickering through the key hole she gently eased the door open and peered inside. Altair was sprawled on his bed, clad in his indigo sleeping tunic and pants. His left hand rested across his stomach, while the right was at this side, and by the steady rise and fall of his chest she could tell he was already fast asleep.

She reached down to slip off her shoes, setting them down on the inside of the door before tip-toeing into the room. Closing the door behind herself as silently as she could, she tiptoed across the room. Her freshly washed things were once again draped over the footboard and she was glad for the earth toned clothes the women had gotten her as a spare set. She couldn't use her white sleeping chemise now, despite how comfortable it was. Linen had a propensity to become slightly transparent under the right light conditions, wearing anything sheer around a man was not something she wanted to do.

Her eyes automatically drifted to Altair, watching him for any sign of wakefulness. There was something gentle and unguarded in his sleeping countenance and it brought a smile to her face. Perching on the chair as silently as she could, she continued to watch him for a few minutes, but invariably her thoughts drifted to her options. She could try to crawl into the bed beside him, which would not be anything new, but after what happened earlier that evening, the option didn't feel right. She moved slowly to her small chest of items and picked up her sleeping chemise, bundling it up into a pillow form, which she placed on the table before sitting down on the chair. It took a slight effort to get comfortable enough to sleep while sitting up, even with a makeshift pillow, but she managed to fall asleep with her hands folded under the chemise.

Sandy woke up again when the air around her began to heat up as the morning drew by. It took her maybe a second or two to realize that she wasn't sitting up, hunched over the table, but laying on the bed. The realization made her shoot into a sitting position and one look around the room told her that Altair wasn't there. She could hear the normal hustle and bustle of the training going on in the courtyard, the occasional tinkle of clashing swords and the shouts flying back and forth as the trainees jeered each other.

From the noise outside she knew she missed breakfast, so she would probably have to go and ask the mistress of the kitchen if there were any leftovers she could munch on. Sandy got to her feet and stretched, pleased to find that her back hadn't cramped up by the hunched over position in which she had begun to sleep in. With a smile on her face she began to dress in her normal clothing, and it was then that a thought occurred to her, when did Altair move her? He was the only one that would have seen her sleeping at the table. To have moved her so easily that she hadn't even woken up was a testament to his skill. She shook her head to discard her errant thoughts she grabbed her shoes, put them on, and left the room.

* * *

Altair arrived at the master's study and stopped in front of the desk, which was strewn with the new charts that Malik had made, and which the elder man was appraising. "You wished to see me, master?" he addressed, drawing the man's attention to himself.

The master looked up from the charts and paused for a short moment before speaking, "I have a new task for you, but first, I want to know how our guest is."

"She's comfortable," Altair replied.

"Excellent. I trust she will remain so while under your supervision."

"Of course." Altair replied immediately, realizing that he was once again saddled with the secondary task of keeping an eye out on Cassandra. It made him wonder why, she was an informant now and no man of the brotherhood would dare attack her, especially not after Jamal had been made an example of. Why did the woman still need someone to keep an eye on her, and why him? Antonio seemed to have done a good enough job in the past three weeks; certainly the woman was comfortable around him if she chose and used an affectionate name for him so liberally. Altair decided to voice those questions and was not surprised that Al Mualim seemed amused by them.

"Do not think her affections lay where they do not, Altair. She is an affectionate child, but the depth of her those affections is not for Antonio to see. If she should ask your permission to follow you on the mission I am about to give you, that will be your sign of where her true loyalties lay."

Altair did not doubt that she would ask to come along, it was only her infirm condition that had stopped her three weeks ago. She had been reasonable then, but now there was little reason to outright deny her. He would have preferred it if she remained in Masyaf, but fact remained that her new, if honorary title of informant allowed her a certain few rights. Though it was doubtable if she would ever be assigned a concrete mission as an informant; she wasn't trained for the tasks. Altair was sure that she was only given the cloak as a form of protection from others who would think to act like Jamal had. However, if she wished to travel with one of the brotherhood under the guise of an assistant, it was well within her rights to ask. Altair realized that he could bring her along and simply forbid her from following him on the actual job.

"Whose life would you have me take?" Altair asked.

"Go to Damascus and rid the world of the one they call Tamir. The bureau keeper will have more information that will be of use to you. Return to Masyaf upon completion, there are a few other targets that require your attention."

"I understand," Altair nodded his head.

"You are dismissed then," the master stated.

Altair descended the stairs from the study, still puzzling over the matter of why the master would concern himself with the situation with the woman. It could be some simple curiosity, Cassandra was an odd one, but this veiled order to keep an eye on her?

* * *

Sandy had just finished her breakfast of leftovers and found herself in the entry hall when she spotted Altair descending the stairs. She made a beeline straight for him with a small smile on her face. "Good morning!" she greeted. Altair stopped at the base of the stairs, inclining his head ever so slightly in a wordless greeting.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, noticing how his look lingered on her.

"Nothing. I have a new mission," he announced, resuming his walk.

"Ah," Sandy replied, trailing beside him. "Akka?" she asked.

"Damascus," he corrected without hesitation.

Sandy nodded, she couldn't be right all the time, could she? "I don't suppose you will allow me to come along?" she asked, although it sounded more like a statement than a question. Just for a split of a second Sandy thought she saw a flicker of something different in his eyes but then it was gone, masked beneath his all purpose grin.

"You are an informant now, if you wish you can formally request permission to come as an assistant."

"Who do I ask?" she wondered.

"Me," he replied.

"Thought so," Sandy stated flatly There was just something in his tone that she didn't quite like, it seemed like he was enjoying himself a little too much at that precise moment. "You're evil, you know that, right?" she asked.

"That's not a request," Altair replied, grinning again.

"Master Altair," Sandy continued flatly, "May I, the lowly informant, formally request your permission to come with you to Damascus?"

"See, that wasn't hard, was it? You can come."

Sandy rolled her eyes, there was something she just learned about Altair, he was indeed very much evil. She opened her mouth to say something, but then noticed Faisal and Antonio approaching them.

"Good morning you two," she greeted.

"Good morning, _senorita_." Antonio took her hand, and raised it to his lips to kiss her knuckles. Sandy couldn't help but smile; it seemed like whatever it was that had bugged Antonio the previous day seemed to have passed. She was glad for that; she didn't need both of her elite assassins looking all glum and broody.

"Morning," Faisal greeted.

Sandy noticed the sullen look Faisal had on his face, "What's wrong?" she wondered.

"It's noting. I was thinking of challenging you to a sparring match, but-" Faisal stopped, glancing at Altair.

"We have a mission to prepare for," Altair stated.

"_We?_" Antonio wondered, eyeing the other elite assassin dubiously.

"Oh! Altair allowed me to come with him to Damascus, he does his job, I do a little bit of sight-seeing, and it's a total win-win." Sandy explained.

"Go get ready, we will depart in an hour," Altair stated.

Sandy flashed Antonio an apologetic smile, turned around jogged back into the fortress. She had to get her supplies ready and tell the girls she was gone off, so they wouldn't worry too much.

* * *

Altair moved to stand by the balustrade overlooking the practice rink when Antonio approached, having sent Faisal away, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, a grave look on his face.

"What do you want?" Altair asked.

"For you to leave her _here_," Antonio replied.

"It was her request."

"She may wear the cloak of an informant, but you and I both know that she is not trained in any way for it."

Altair kept his expression perfectly flat even as he realized what was going on here. Some part of him was vaguely amused at Antonio's protectiveness over the woman, but that also told him something else. In three weeks that he had been gone Antonio hadn't managed to get close enough to her to know what kind of spirit and temper she possessed. Normally complacent and easy-going, Altair knew that Cassandra hated being treated like a fragile piece of pottery and would lash out when treated as such. The conversation they had before his departure three weeks ago had been proof enough of that side of her nature. Yet the Spaniard insisted on doing just that because he did not know a thing about it. "I will only say this once," Altair began coldly. "I work _alone._ Her assistance is more of a liability than help." he stated.

"A _liability_?" Antonio boomed. "Is that truly what you think of her?"

"This discussion is over, Antonio. I do not have to explain my decisions to _you_." Altair made to walk away when Antonio's next question stopped him in his tracks.

"If she truly means that little to you, why do you allow her to follow you?"

Altair turned back, sparing the Spaniard a glare that he only spared his targets moments before he struck.

"Of all the arrogant- after all she had done for you!" Antonio went on.

The argument was beginning to grate on Altair's nerves. It didn't take an educated scholar to understand what was going on there. Antonio was jealous, preposterously jealous. He saw Cassandra's loyalty for more than it was, and since he lacked knowledge of her nature he couldn't see his error. Foremost he had lost track of the simple truth, Cassandra was out of his reach as long as she wore the white mantle of the informer.

By all accounts it was the rarest of rarities that a woman served as informant in the brotherhood. Add to that, Cassandra's situation was perhaps even more unique compared to of all the other female informants who had come and gone before her. Still there was nothing in her situation that said she wasn't to be treated like all others. There was a rule against assassins fraternizing with those rare female informants, for no other reason than the third tenant of the creed.

Altair decided it was best to remind Antonio of the hopelessness of his obvious affections for the woman. It was best he realized that there were many things standing in his way. "You forget where you stand, Spaniard." Altair stated. "As long as she wears the mantle of informant, she will _always_ be out of your reach."

Antonio's grip on his sword tightened but then relaxed as he mulled over the words spoken. "_This time_ keep her safe," he stated, though it sounded like he wanted to say something more.

"She will be," Altair replied, and he realized that he meant it. The event with Jamal had been a single occurrence, caused by the belief that the brotherhood had no darkness within their ranks. A single oversight that would not be repeated. He would not let anyone near Cassandra as long as he was tasked with keeping an eye on her; it was a matter of principle, Altair refused to fail. Wordlessly he turned his back on Antonio and resumed his walk. He had been detained from the stables long enough. He had to oversee the workers as they saddled and supplied their horses, so they may depart as soon as Cassandra caught up with him. He trusted the woman to display her usual amount of sense in knowing where he'd be without having to be told.

* * *

Sandy arrived at the stables half an hour later and found everything ready for departure. Altair was standing by Talimar, looking vaguely impatient. She could tell by the soured expression on his face, one that was only slightly different from his normal expression by the pursed set of his lips.

"Thanks for waiting," she began; figuring a little bit of gratitude might placate him if only a little bit.

"Let's go," he commanded, pulling himself unto the white stallion's back.

Sandy mounted Nyx and had to urge the dark mare to follow as Altair was already ahead of her. They rode in silence in single file until they were just past the stone arches and then Sandy drove her horse to catch up so they could attempt a conversation, not that there was much that she felt the need to talk about.

Her mind was too focused on wistfully imagining all the sights of Damascus. All she knew was that in the twenty first century it was the capital of Syria, a very old city, one of the oldest in the world. The old city was to be presented to her in all its period-accurate fineries, and the prospect of that got her curiosity going. In the interest of such experiences she was going to look the other way when it came to these abrupt departures.

They rode with sparse conversation until the early evening when upon cresting a craggy hill Altair brought Talimar to a halt and signed for Sandy to stop as well. She did so without argument and drew her mare closer to his side. "Something's up?" she wondered in a whisper.

"Look below," he replied.

Sandy did and was somewhat surprised to a see a large marching group of armored men led by some who were mounted. "Knights," she murmured.

"Hospitallers," Altair corrected.

Sandy stared at them from her high perch. She would imagine that it was a whole unit of them, made up of thirty or more on foot, with at least ten on horseback, she couldn't count heads all too well over the distance through the glare of the sun's light, but they were moving on the same road that Altair and her had meant to take, and it was enough to bother her. Highwaymen were easily dispatched, but getting anywhere near a bunch of fully armored knights wasn't an adventure she wanted to have.

"They're in our way, aren't they?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Hm," Sandy murmured. "Well I guess they must be going somewhere, with the fall of Akka, they can't all be hanging out there."

"They're heading to their fort nearby. You can't see it now because of the sun, but it's to the west of us."

Sandy hummed in ascent and wondered if she would get to see said fortress once the sun had set a little and the glare of its dying light was gone.

"We will rest for an hour or two among the rocks here and resume our journey when they are gone. I want to get through this area before we sleep," Altair commanded his horse to move and Sandy had no choice but to follow.

"How strange," Sandy muttered as if to her self. "I've never through I'd think of the Christian military orders of antiquity as those to be wary of. I heard things of the Teutonic knights, the Hospitallers, and of course the Templars, but I guess being on the other side of the conflict changes your views."

"What do you know about them?" Altair wondered.

"Oh not much, not about the Teutonic knights or Hospitallers, they are not as legendary as the Templars in my time. What little I know is nothing too interesting. I guess the only thing I can offer as a way of maybe- I don't know, comfort, is this nugget of knowledge. In about hundred and twenty years the Templars will be dissolved by big scandal. I can't tell you the dates exactly, because I do not know those exact facts, but what I do know is that the lot of them will be prosecuted for perceived heresies. That will give rise to their infamy as a rather secretive bunch."

"That information is of little comfort to us now," Altair replied.

"I'm sorry, my knowledge is very limited. Had I known I would end up traveling back in time, I would've studied more," Sandy chuckled at that to herself.

"It is better that you know so little, you're less danger to yourself for it."

"Maybe," Sandy replied. She knew he was partially right. She'd have to be completely ignorant not to realize the danger she could pose had she knew more. Greed for knowledge was almost as bad as greed for power and wealth. It could turn the most unassuming person into a monster a tyrant.

They lapsed into a silence until Altair found a small sheltered outcrop of rock upon which they could rest while overseeing the road below for any more crusaders. There they had their evening meal and when the sun had set they had no choice but to depart again, using the cloak of darkness to traverse this dangerous area.

They traveled for two days in such an eclectic schedule, preferring early in the morning to the afternoon due to the increased presence of crusader brigades on the roads. Sandy could see the whole area was in a state of unrest. They would often ride past small villages and invariably someone would watch them go with suspicion clearly in their eyes. Twice when stopping at a well to refill their water skins, Sandy had caught the tail ends of suspicious whispering. Altair ignored it all as if it did not bother him in the least bit, which was probably mostly true, but for her it was something strange indeed.

Upon sighting the city of Damascus on the evening of the second day she was exhausted by little sleep, less food, and long hours in the saddle, but she wouldn't be caught dead complaining to her companion about the sorry state of her being. Getting past the gates was a simple enough matter and soon they were walking to the bureau, and Sandy could only absorb the sights around her as if by osmosis, she had little energy for anything else.

Her back was the worst of the ailments and it took her all the remaining energy she had not to allow the pangs of pain in her spine affect her walk too much. They took to the rooftops a block away from the bureau and when Altair had jumped down through the latticework into another walled in side yard she resigned herself and jumped in after him. Sticking the landing hurt, but she straightened, flexed her muscles and followed him inside.

"Altair! Well I have been expecting you, but when I heard someone else I though- taking up an assistant are you?" the rafiq asked by way of greeting upon seeing them.

"Not quite," Altair replied.

Sandy reached up and took off her hood, the act startled the proprietor of the bureau enough that his eyes remained focused on her as if he was seeing a spirit. "Good evening," she greeted with a light bow of her head.

"Ah!" the man got up from his seat at his glazing table and approached. "Now it makes sense, you must be the Lady Cassandra; it is a pleasure meeting you."

"Yes, and thank you," Sandy replied.

"You two must be tired, rest and enjoy the evening as you may, we shall talk of business in the morning."

"I'll be outside," Sandy murmured to Altair, knowing her cue and electing to slip out the door. She did not want to hear who Altair was sent to kill this time. In that faculty she was sure that the less she knew, the better she was, and the cleaner her conscience would be.

* * *

"I now understand what the others meant when they said she was exotic," the rafiq stated in a lowered tone. "It is a pity she has been ordained, my friend."

Altair shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It is better this way," he replied. "Her ordainment is entirely for her own protection after what has happened with Jamal."

"Were it just that, but no, she is a very intelligent woman. I have read the information she had gathered for you after all. I'm convinced the brotherhood would stand to benefit from training her to be a full informant."

"That is up to her," Altair stated. "As for business, I do not wish to discuss the particulars in her presence, so tell me now what you can about the one they call Tamir."

"Of course, of course," The rafiq paced back towards his work table as Altair watched. He had pretty much expected the prodding to come from this man. At a cursory glance, their traveling arrangements together and sharing such a unique companionship would look like the hints of something, but he would've expected people not to see things that weren't there.

"Tamir is a black market merchant in this district. He runs a weapon manufacturing and distribution operation, and in the last year his business had doubled, if not tripled through some very big business deals. I suggest you go observe the workshops where his men create his goods before you choose where and how to strike. However I will caution you against dropping any hints that you are looking for him, the man has many spies all over the district."

"I will see to that tomorrow," Altair replied.

"Good then, now go and tell the lady that she needn't throw her back sleeping outside, she may use the guest quarters of the bureau as she pleases."

Altair pretended that he had not heard the offer as he stepped outside, it didn't take much to know why the offer was made in such a way that he were the one to deliver it. However he knew even if he gave Cassandra the offer she would reject it out of some sense of not wanting to be a burden. He even knew that she was holding back great pains not to appear as one to him. She managed to keep up her act with a bravado that was almost authentic, which was why he didn't feel the need to call her out on it. It was none of his concern that the woman made her own life difficult out of some transparent sense of modesty.

* * *

Sandy was listening to music via her headphones when she spotted Altair enter the yard. Music was her one best avenue of escape to prevent overhearing snippets of conversation carried on the air. She pulled the headphones from her ears and turned off the music before coiling the headphones around her cell phone and stowed the device back in her bag. She had discarded her cloak, bundling it up in the corner along with her black leather jacket.

"What's the itinerary tomorrow?" she wondered.

Altair who had been in the process of shedding his arsenal for sleep glanced at her crossly and Sandy idly wondered if that too was none of her business. Finally setting aside his harness and short sword, he lowered his hood and approached the carpet. "I do not plan to be in the city for long, it will take me two days at the longest to find out the information I need, and another day to carry out the task at hand. After that-" he explained, easing himself into a sitting position by her side.

Sandy's expression sank before she could hide it. "Somehow I had hoped-" she stopped there, deciding that it was best she didn't finish that sentence out loud. She had hoped for an evening of sight seeing, but then decided that it had been a silly hope. Altair wasn't her private tour guide slash chaperone; he didn't have to show her the sights.

"You can come on the investigation, and only on the investigation," Altair stated.

Sandy looked up and him and suddenly smiled broadly, "Thank you."

"There will be rules. In case of trouble of any kind, you are to get out of there and go to the gates we entered the city through. I will retrieve you when the coast is clear. Failing that, the rafiq will send one of his men for you. I don't want you wandering the streets of Damascus alone, stay in the open, and mind your footing and manners."

"You're treating me like a kid again," Sandy protested. "But I agree. Listen I don't want to give you trouble. Besides, maybe I'll come in handy, a pair of sharp eyes is good, two pairs is even better, you know."

"I know," he repeated with a grin.

Silence lingered between them for all of thirty seconds before Sandy decided to address the immediate issue at hand. "I guess we'll be sharing again, huh?" she wondered.

"You are free to use the free room in the bureau," Altair stated, grabbing hold of the biggest pillow which he repositioned before easing himself into a sleeping position.

"There's a spare room?" Sandy wondered.

When she didn't get a reply she turned to look at him and saw that he had his eyes closed and she realized that he was done talking. She picked up another pillow, fluffed it thoroughly and set it down again next to his, easing herself into position next to him. After a moment she briefly placed her hand on his elbow and whispered a simple 'good night' to which she received no reply. Still somehow satisfied she rolled over to her other side, turning her back to him, and curled into a fetal position before falling asleep.

Sandy awoke with a start when she felt her shoulder being shaken; opening her eyes she wasn't surprised to see Altair hovering over her. "It's time to get up already?" she asked.

Altair simply nodded his head and got to his feet before vanishing inside. Sandy noted that he was fully armed; he had let her sleep as long as he reasonably could. She sat up and stretched before diving to grab her things. Ten minutes later they were on the streets of Damascus with Sandy enjoying her breakfast on the walk.

An hour after they had set off, Sandy realized where Altair led them. The back street they walked through was choked with smoke from large furnaces, and rang with the sound of hammers on anvils. She noted the number of blacksmiths fast at work at their craft and it got her curious enough to ask the first question in since they set off. "Why are we here?"

"You should have paid attention," Altair reprimanded as he walked on, seemingly unbothered.

Sandy sighed, realizing that he was exactly right on that account. She resigned herself to piecing everything together on her own. A moment later she raised the sleeve of her cloak to her nose and mouth to ward off the foul acrid smells emanating from the various workshops. Altair walked on with unaffected grace and confidence, she followed as a shadow, but her eyes remained focused on the piles of weapons that the blacksmiths were making, who would want that large quantity of weapons?

Suddenly, Altair's hand on her shoulder stopped her cold as he pulled her towards the shadows, clamping one hand around her mouth as a signal to be quiet. Sandy could do little more than glare up at him, but then noticed he was not paying any attention to her. She followed his line of sight and noted that one of the blacksmiths ahead was currently occupied by another man. This second man was better dressed, but in no way exquisitely dressed, he was busy appraising one of the swords the blacksmith had made, and they were exchanging words. Sandy could hear just a little bit, occasional mention of a large deal, and something about being behind schedule. It seemed to her that the blacksmith was unhappy with being forced to work at this insane pace.

Sandy glanced at Altair again and noted that his stare at them had not wavered, his eyebrows were drawn in concentration and it took her a moment to realize that somehow or other he could hear exactly what they were saying. Not for the first time it impressed on her a sense of almost wonder, it seemed like this assassin had all the qualifications of someone above human. When it came to his job, was there something that Altair did not excel at?

"Keep walking through this street until you see a plaza, find a bench and sit on it, I'll get you," he stated, whispering the words dangerously close to her ear, eliciting a faint tingle of energy to race down her spine.

Before Sandy could nod, his hand left her mouth and he left the shadows, following the man down the street, leaving Sandy thoroughly befuddled and alone. She regained her senses after a few seconds and exited the shadows herself, slipping her hands into the opposite sleeves as she walked. The cloak really made her look less like a woman and more like a young boy, if not a man, and for that she was partially glad. Looking down the street she could see the small plaza that Altair had undoubtedly meant in his brusque order.

However, as she passed the same blacksmith which had been previously engaged by the man Altair had followed, she paused. The blacksmith had his back turned to the pile of weapons that had previously been the focus of thorough inspection and their glimmering brightness drew her attention as they lay on a table by the workshop's entrance. She leaned closer to take a look at them, keeping her hands clasped behind her back so as to not look like she was thinking of stealing them or anything. The pile contained mostly swords, all of them simple and identical, clearly finely made but not nearly as ornate as the one wielded by Altair or Antonio.

The pommels were a simple round shapes, the grips wrapped in black leather, the cross guards were straight utterly undecorated, but what caught her eye was the crosses stamped into the metal, situated just below the guard on each sword. The sight of the somewhat familiar shapes surprised her enough into stepping back, whereupon her eyes darted to the blacksmith, who was working the bellows of his forge, as yet oblivious to her presence.

She turned back to the swords to check if she hadn't been seeing things, but no, the crosses were still there. While she didn't know what kind of heralding symbol Saladin used with his army, she was pretty sure it wouldn't be a cross. She would've thought that these beautiful swords were to be sent to support the Saracen armies fighting the crusaders, not the other way around. Instantly Sandy knew the significance of her little discovery and the fact that she should show it to Altair. She whipped out her cell phone and switched on the camera feature. While the blacksmith was still distracted she aimed the device at the closest crest, close enough so that it was clearly visible on the screen, and hit the shutter button. With the incriminating picture taken, she turned around and made haste to the plaza of their meeting, careful to actually save the picture to the device's memory.

She entered the plaza in a calm walk, hands pushed into the sleeves of her cloak, her head bowed slightly to prevent people from seeing who was under the hood. The first bench she spotted, she sat down on as instructed, and it wasn't long before she spotted Altair approaching from the other side of the plaza. It was honestly hard to miss him in all his six foot glory and wearing white.

"Altair, come sit down. I want to show you something," she stated. "It has to do with those smiths."

"What did you do?" he demanded, suddenly less than pleased.

Sandy got up to her feet, seeing as he wasn't going to join her sitting on the bench. "Nothing much, I got a good look at those weapons. You'll be interested in knowing what sort of crest they bear."

"They're meant for Salah ad-Din," Altair replied.

"But they're not!" Sandy replied as she pulled her hands free from her sleeves, "Here take a look. My cell phone is able to take images of anything I point it at. I won't explain the mechanics, but its handy here," she deftly brought up the picture and handed him the device.

Altair took it and stared at the small screen for a long moment before turning back to her with an expression of incredulity on his features, "That's the templar crest." He stated.

"Oh that's what it is? I didn't know." Sandy replied as she took the cell phone back and stowed it in her jacket pocket. "Well- I knew it was one of those three orders, I just wasn't sure which, you know," Sandy mumbled, trailing off into her own thoughts. This was worse than even she realized, this was big. But it made sense that whoever was supplying weapons to the Templars was marked for assassination. "What the hell is going on?" she wondered rhetorically.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Templar swords: I think it is important to point out that most swords you will find online under "templar sword" are too ornate to have been used by the actual Templars, whose monastic code held all displays of pride and vanity as forbidden. I'm kind going more 'factual' here. More allusions to this factual monastic code will follow, in the interest of factual accuracy.

**Director's Notes:**

A little late, but that's okay I think. This chapter loosely marks the transition of one arc to the next, and that's about as smooth as that can happen. If you're seeing similarities between the game and the plot of CT, that's all entirely intentional. I decided to parallel the plot, but the overreaching conspiracy will be a fair bit different from the game's plot, so you will have a bit more 'freshness'. There's really little more that needs to be said, so I won't drag out these notes.


	14. Returning to Status Quo

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**

* * *

Chapter XIV**__**:**_ Returning to Status Quo

They left the plaza with Sandy's mind still fixated on the swords and their crests. She walked in Altair's shadow, only paying enough attention to avoid bumping into people as most of her mind was lost in thought. She couldn't make a heads or tails of the matter based solely on the limited information that she had, there were still gaps in her knowledge. The target Altair was assigned to kill was just a faceless shadow in her mind, she would've liked a name, and for that she knew that she'd have to grit her teeth, bear her loss, and ask the one person between them who held all the cards.

"Altair, would you _please_ forgive me for having _too many_ manners and that I did _not_ eavesdrop on your conversations? _Please_, just tell me who it is you're going to do in," she murmured as they crossed a relatively quiet street.

"All those blacksmiths work for the same man," Altair began.

"Well that much I figured myself from the fact that you went there, and I figure if he's selling weapons to the Templars that's justification enough to be rid of him. Isn't that kind of betraying your own people?"

"Precisely."

"This is messed up, what in the blazes would make a person do that?"

"Greed."

Sandy hummed in assent, she didn't want to look too nosy, but she knew that Altair was still concealing things from her. He had followed that one man for a reason, what did he get off that man remained a mystery to her. She had a feeling that unless she could pull on the right thread, he would not tell her what he had discovered. However the threads she had within her reach were scant, she had not heard enough of the conversation between the smith and the man to know what it could be. One thing stuck out, it was the mention of a large deal, but she could already assume that the deal in question involved the swords the smiths had been making.

"So who is the man?" Sandy wondered.

"His name is Tamir, and that is all you need to know," Altair replied.

Sandy tried not to pout, but all she needed to know wasn't enough to satisfy her curiosity now that it was roused, even if her conscience was shouting for her to stop while she was ahead. Having a name and a motive it meant that Altair only needed a location for his strike, did he already have that? Did she honestly want to pry into those things? The more she knew, the more her conscience would bother her about it later.

Even if this Tamir was indeed as bad as he seemed to be, was his death really justifiable? Her morals weighted heavily over her heart and mind, pulling her in two different directions. On the one side, her heart insisted that she wanted to help Altair, she knew that sometimes bad things had to be done; sometimes someone had to become stained with blood for the better tomorrow. She herself worked on that principle when she set that restaurant on fire, it was as clear as saving people before they caught something worse than food poisoning from the rat infested place. However that was where the similarity ended, she had made sure that the only ones to get hurt _there_ were the rats. Here she was faced with something that was quite different, something her modern morals were very much against.

In the twenty-first century what she was doing now would be called accessory to murder, in the eyes of the police she would be almost worse than Altair by the fact that she did not prevent the crime, knowing it would happen. Never mind that she herself had already committed murder once, assault with a deadly weapon thrice, and all that was not counting the few counts of arson before. _What a rap sheet, talk about going from good person to a hardened criminal in under a month_, she thought,_ but what the cops don't know, can't harm me. _With her mood lifted by a realization that there were few who would prosecute her for those crimes in this century she felt emboldened, and quickened her pace behind Altair, no longer dragging her feet.

"Beggars," Altair stated suddenly as they entered another square at a meeting of three streets.

"What?" Sandy wondered. She looked up and spotted a pair of women moving through the crowd, begging for money as they went. "Yeesh."

Altair made a move to dodge around the large group of citizens that the two women were bothering, but Sandy saw the two lock their eyes on their conspicuously white clothing.

Sandy knew their intent and knew that odds were Altair would not feel charitable. In a snap decision she reached out and wrapped both her arms around his right, pulling herself closer to his side while sending the two women the most vicious glare she could manage, channeling all her skills into acting like a jealous bitch. The two beggar women stopped in their tracks, and suddenly robbed of their bravado by her display of possessiveness they turned around and resumed harassing other passersby's.

"What was that?" Altair asked.

Sandy looked up at him, meeting his gaze while still clinging to his arm; she couldn't help but smile with some pride at her minor achievement. "Diversionary tactics, I assumed you wouldn't like those beggars, please correct me I'm wrong though," she explained, letting go of his arm.

"Common tactic employed by twenty first century women?" He asked.

"It's older than history if it works just as well now, in the twelfth."

"Don't do it again," Altair warned.

Sandy chuckled; a saucy reply on the tip of her tongue, an accusation of him being the only man she knew who disliked it when a girl grabbed up on him, but she decided to just smile and play nice.

As time passed, Sandy found herself hopelessly lost in the twisting and turning streets of the markets of Damascus, every street looked exactly the same to her, there were no signs, and overall the stone walls seemed to draw in on her from all sides until she began to feel almost claustrophobic. Were it not for Altair and his knowing where he was going in this uniform chaos she would've lost all semblance of bearing long ago.

The sun's heat was overbearing, at one pm it seemed to her like she was trapped in an oven. Were it not for her linen riding cloak she knew she would be in bigger trouble, but even with it she didn't feel a hundred percent right. The calls of the merchants to inspect their wares all began to blur together and it suddenly occurred to Sandy that the reason why she was having so much hard time with keeping up with all the chaos around her was the heat.

"Altair," she voiced, touching his arm in a ghostly manner, just enough to get his attention. "Can we rest a little?"

"Our destination is right ahead," he replied.

Sandy glanced ahead and spotted another plaza, this one was larger than those she had seen before, having a fountain in its center and a latticework roof structure that gave it some semblance of shade. She glanced at Altair and noted his gaze flicking away from her. "Just until the plaza then. I think all this heat is starting to get to me, where I come from it's not this hot," she admitted.

"You never told me where this _Vancouver_ is," Altair noted, sounding vaguely curious.

"Ah, that's right, I didn't," Sandy fell instep beside him and thought for a moment about how to best explain a whole new continent so far away to a man who had probably never seen the other side of the Mediterranean. "Well, you know the sea, right? On the other side is Spain- well Vancouver is beyond the waters, the Atlantic Ocean, on the other side there." She leaned closer not to be overhead by the average citizen. "There is a whole other _continent_ there, it won't be discovered for another couple hundred years, but Vancouver will be a city on the west coast of that continent."

Altair didn't reply for a long time and Sandy idly wondered if it wasn't because of her horribly shoddy explanation skills. She didn't know what terms to use to properly explain the geographic location of a city that technically didn't exist yet anyways. To save her life she couldn't come up with a better explanation right at that moment, and the harder she tried, the harder it seemed to become. Meanwhile they arrived at the plaza and Altair led the way over to a bench by the bubbling fountain.

"Sit," he commanded.

Sandy did so and was pleasantly surprised just how much cooler it was here under the latticework, she reached to her side under her cloak and pulled out her water skin, taking a long deep drink so satisfy a thirst she didn't know she had.

Altair sat down next to her and idly inspected their surroundings; she could see that he was looking at every merchant who had a small stall at the edge of the plaza. Finally his eyes rested on a group of men talking in the shadowed corner of the square, Sandy watched them as well and realized that one of the three was dressed in a similar fashion to the one that Altair had followed from the blacksmiths. It didn't take her long to realize that Altair had indeed come here on business and not just to let her rest.

"I will stay here and relax," she whispered, leaning closer to Altair as to not be overheard.

Without acknowledging her, the assassin got to this feet and left. Sandy stretched out her legs and watched him go as he drew near enough to the men he had been looking at to overhear their conversation. She couldn't hope to hear a word of it over the twenty meters of so of distance between them, so she decided to simply watch events as they happened. Altair leaned on the trunk of a palm tree, seemingly minding his own business as he blatantly eavesdropped on the conversation between the men. Sandy found herself losing interest in whatever she wasn't hearing at the moment, and becoming more interested in her companion and observing him at an objective distance. Like some sort of psychologist trying to observe the natural behavior of their subject, trying to figure out what made them tick. Maybe it was the haze of being heat fatigued, but she couldn't help but admire him.

There was something decidedly noble about his countenance and the way he carried himself even during these sorts of tasks. The confidence of his person was very much apparent on him; it was like a halo around him, evident to all who stopped long enough to notice it.

Her admirations were shattered when the group of men moved and Altair followed them at a safe distance. As far as she could see the men then broke up, each going their own way on the streets of the city, but Altair followed the one who was familiarly dressed. Soon he vanished altogether from her view around a street corner. Sandy was left alone in her contemplations of what was going on.

As she sat there, waiting for Altair's return, she drank more water from her skin, enjoying its cooling sensation as it passed down her throat, soon enough her skin was empty.

* * *

The servant was a cautious one, looking over his shoulder every once and a while, it took Altair extra care to follow him without being spotted too soon. Finally the man ducked into an alley and Altair separated himself from a group of civilians to duck into the alley after him.

Here he didn't bother to disguise himself and raced after his target, the man was quite a distance ahead, and vanished around a corner, but Altair caught up to him and grabbed the man by the shoulder.

"What do you want?" the man demanded.

"Information on the one they call Tamir," Altair replied.

The man's whole countenance changed as he tore free from Altair's grip and swung out. Altair dodged the punch and swung back, catching the man solidly in the gut, sending him stumbling back.

"You're not- I'll talk! I'll talk!" the man waved his hand to ward off any more blows.

"Be quick about it," Altair replied.

The man paused, straightening, clearly gauging if he could lie himself out of this situation, "If it is business that you want to do with him, then he will not see you."

"That's not for you to decide, tell me where I can find him," Altair commanded, rapidly losing patience with this one.

The man cringed and took a step back, but found the alley's wall at his back, the brief expression of panic that flicked across the man's face gave Altair satisfaction, maybe now the fool would see his predicament and try the truth in a pointless effort to save his skin. No matter what this man would say Altair knew that he couldn't leave him alive to warn Tamir. He had tried to observe without notice, but sometimes it was just not possible.

"Tamir is busy with a large order; he has his blacksmiths gather at the Souk Al-Silaah daily to present their progress, he inspects all the weapons. That's all I know- I am tasked with checking up on the smiths, nothing more."

"That's good enough," Altair stated. If Tamir was busy inspecting the many weapons, it would mean he'd be fixated on his work, preoccupied, and that would be very much to his advantage. One strike would end his life, and that's all Altair needed.

"Busy as he is with inspecting the weapons, he will not see you."

Altair smiled, which set the cowardly man before him on edge instantly, "He is not in the position to deny meeting _me_," he stated and with a single stroke of his hidden blade the man before him crumpled to the ground, dead before impact.

Altair wiped down the blade with the rag from his pouch as he exited the alley and proceeded back to the square where he left Cassandra. He now had enough information for a strike and that meant they could call it a day.

The crowd was a little thicker now, just twenty minutes turned the tide of the traffic and Altair was forced to push his way through the sea of people as he made his way. At the entrance to the square he scanned for any sign that the city guards there were aware of anything. There was no such indication, but it was best to be safe than cause trouble and expose his relatively defenseless companion.

He made his way to the bench where Cassandra still sat. It was as if she hadn't moved an inch since he left her, and he would've thought she'd move around a little, but no. As he approached, he expected her to jump to her feet and show her usual overenthusiastic chipper eagerness, but she remained sitting there, elbows on her knees, hands clasped, head bowed.

He set a hand on her shoulder and she startled, which told him enough to know she had been very distracted with something, "let's go," he stated.

She got up, but he noted a wobble in her stance, suddenly her hand clutching his arm again and he could feel the immense heat radiating from her palm right through the sleeve of his tunic. "I don't feel so good," she murmured.

"The heat, why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

"I did, remember?" Sandy replied weakly.

Altair cursed silently when he remembered that she had in fact alluded to it. Why else would she suddenly ask to rest? He had brushed it off as just mild tiredness from walking too much, but apparently it had been a little more serious than that. "Next time, don't be so vague about it. Think you can walk back? There will be water to cool you off."

"I'll try," Sandy replied.

"Drink more," he offered.

"Empty already, didn't think it safe to drink from the fountain."

"Then here," he offered her his own water skin and watched as she paused long enough to drain it all as if she hadn't had a drop in a day. Seeing that she still seemed able to move on her own, he assumed that it was just the early stages of her body failing due to the heat, if she could be cooled off in the next half an hour nothing would happen. The two made their way back to the bureau, and the water he gave her seemed to work, he noticed a slight improvement, but the hand still on his arm did not lose any of its scorching heat.

* * *

Sandy tried to keep it together, _only until the bureau_ quickly became her mantra as she tried to keep together. In the meantime she focused on keeping a grip on Altair's arm, knowing that in her state she couldn't trust any other sense to make sure they didn't separate.

The return trip went by in a blur, all she knew was that one second she was still in the square, the next she was in front of the ladder that led up to the yard entrance of the bureau. It took her some effort to muster enough energy to climb up the ladder and more to jump down the gap as she idly wondered if she could stick the landing without breaking her neck.

Altair had stuck around only long enough to apparently make sure she wouldn't kill herself coming down; a second later he was inside the bureau. She shed her riding cloak and the leather jacket, leaving both with her messenger bag by the pillows and then made her way inside, carrying their two empty water skins along.

Altair was just leaving the kitchens with a fresh water skin as she passed him and she smiled. Right now getting cooled off and rehydrated was higher on her priority list than figuring out Altair's job. She approached the washbasin and noted the fresh buckets of water there; dipping one finger in them she discovered both were almost cold.

Sandy glanced back at the entrance and wondered how quickly their conversation will be done, but decided to chance it. Leaving the empty skins on the table, she yanked her tee-shirt out from its tucked position in her jeans and pulled the bottom hem through the collar before rolling up the sleeves.

Then scooping some water from a bucket into a separate bowl she used handfuls to moisten the exposed skin of her arms, belly, and back. The cold water felt a lot better, and it would lower her core temperature faster. Finally she ran both dripping hands repeatedly through her hair to wet it as well. The small draft that played through the house felt absolutely divine on her wet skin and gave her the right sort of shiver. She drew another bowlful of water from the bucket and drank it whole.

A scuff of boots on the floor alerted her to the presence of someone behind her. Sandy turned around and almost froze, Altair stood in the entrance doorway, as if he had stopped mid-step. She noted the look in his eyes, the same sort of evaluating basilisk stare that he seemed so fond of; but the slight rise of his eyebrows seemed to give it a surprised sort of quality instead of a dark and eerie one.

"Did I miss the talk already?" she asked.

"It's best you don't know where I'll be making the kill tomorrow," Altair replied, his blank expression returning.

"Ah," Sandy nodded her head. "Then I guess you did get all you needed today. That's good."

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Cooling off. There's a pleasant little draft here, and I figure I won't end up flashing too many people here, looking like this," she gestured to herself.

"And you're not… _flashing_ me?" he asked as he moved further into the room.

The sound of his deep voice coupled with the tone of the question made Sandy suddenly unable to tear her eyes away from his form, was that just a tease she heard? She was positive that it was a tease, she smiled. "_You_ don't count," the words tumbled out before she could stop herself. The humor in his tone begged her to tease him right back.

Altair stopped again, and Sandy seeing his questioning look smiled wider, placing her hands on her hips, hooking her thumbs through the belt loops of her jeans, shifting her weight from foot to foot. His eyes flicked down and then up twice as quickly, their gazes locked.

Sandy exhaled slowly and in that brief moment she felt it again, the chills and the heat fighting and coiling about her spine. As alike as the two looks were, there was something different there now. Unlike that night in the quarters, there was no smile to follow. His eyes smoldered and yet the rest of his features remained expressionless.

Unconsciously she crossed her arms and clasped her hands on her elbows, turning away from that chilling look. Did she just cross some sort of line? _He isn't like one of the guys from home_._ He will probably think the worst things now,_ _God- that was a stupid thing to say, _she thought to herself in mortification._ Of course he counts, he counts most of all. It doesn't matter that it's just a little skin and that he flashed me himself first._

The thought of that made her grip her elbows all the tighter. The silence behind her made her uncomfortable enough to take a few hasty footsteps away, undoing the knot at the front of her tee-shirt, letting it loose, and the sleeves followed.

"I'm sorry, that was… inappropriate," she whispered.

The scuff of his boots on the ground and the whisper of cloth as he moved was her only reply, and for all of a second Sandy expected the worst. The last thing she expected was his hand to rest on her shoulder.

"If you think you did something wrong you should go rest, the heat is still affecting your mind."

Sandy glanced back over her shoulder, but his hand slid off and he walked off as unaffected as ever. She watched him go until the last flap of the tails on his tunic was out of sight and smiled. Maybe it was just dumb luck, or maybe he really could read her mind but it was just another instance of him seemingly knowing exactly what was on her mind.

Sandy stepped into the yard barely five minutes later and was somewhat surprised not to see her companions resting; one glance back through the bureau's door told her that she had not missed him either.

"If you are looking for Altair, he has gone to inspect the location of tomorrow's strike," the rafiq stated, not looking up from his work at the potter's wheel.

"Oh," Sandy murmured.

The rafiq looked up and Sandy found herself on the receiving end of the man's curious expression. She tried not to look self conscious or sheepish, but it was hard. She felt skittish at the moment in the presence of a man she essentially did not know.

"You would have liked to go with him, wouldn't you?" he asked in a fatherly tone.

"Yes and no." Sandy replied. "Yes, because honestly my curiosity is killing me. No because right now it's not a good idea. I seem to have overheated somehow- well, I know _how_- but right now I don't have my endurance going for me."

"Then it is best you remain here," the rafiq agreed. "Come, sit, there is no need to feel unwelcome. I must admit I am curious to ask our newest informant a few questions."

"I'll answer the best I can," Sandy replied. She perched on the empty chair offered and tried to control her fidgeting, but it was a little hard right at that moment. She wrung her hands together before settling on intertwining her fingers.

"I heard of you from some of the others, when they spoke of hair like the sand of the desert I thought it was a misnomer, but you really are of the foreigners. If I may ask, what brings you to the holy land?"

Sandy contemplated what best to say to such a question. "I guess you could say I didn't come here by choice."

"Were you captured by the corsairs?" the rafiq asked. "If you were, rest assured that you will be treated by the brotherhood much better than any treatment you received from them."

"Thank you, I believe that. Altair has been kind to me, well- in his own way." Sandy knew that she was lying, she wasn't captured by the Barbary pirates, but in the interest of keeping the truth a secret, she would let the man think what he would. The way she saw it, she wasn't lying if she wasn't the one to come up with the thought. She would neither deny, nor affirm it directly, and if push comes to shove she could say she was misunderstood.

"It is a dark time when children are forcibly taken from their parents and brought far away from home," the rafiq went on as if speaking to himself.

"The world seems full of darkness these days, between the crusades, and the corsairs, and the- well… I best say no more," Sandy trailed off. Her limited knowledge of history allowed her a perspective on the all of Europe, but she knew that if she displayed too much knowledge it would look strange. She supposed the rafiq thought her to be a peasant of some kind, someone the corsairs nabbed at random; she wasn't meant to know too much.

"You see the crusades as such?" the rafiq wondered.

Sandy glanced at the man, momentarily confused and trying to ascertain why he sounded so surprised at her seeing the crusades in such a light, but then she realized the incidental slip she had delivered. She was supposed to be a Christian! It was unnatural for her to see the crusades as bad!

"Just the methods," she uttered. "I think that the holy land is holy to everyone equally, whether they are Muslim, Christian, or even Jewish. I guess I am hoping that people learn to share."

"Ah I see," the rafiq murmured. "Then you do not see your faith as superior?"

"Not at all."

"You truly are different."

"I'm not even all that religious. I find it hard to be spiritual with the things I have seen and done in my life, the things that happened to me- if that makes any sense."

"It does, more than you'd think."

"That's pretty much it. Some would see my way of thinking as heretical, but the way I see it, no one's way of thinking is better than someone else's. What makes one faith better than another, other than the biased words of the faithful?" By then she realized the rafiq was watching her keenly and she became self conscious at the scrutiny in his expression. "I'm rambling again, I'm sorry," She murmured.

"No, no. It is more than alright. I have never met a woman with such a view."

* * *

Altair stood on the edge of the roof overlooking the Souk Al-Silaah. The square below was busy with the arguments of the various merchants, he could occasionally hear parts of their talks drifting on the wind, but his goal for this trip was not to discover more about his target, but to understand the environment where his target would be.

He scanned over all the details of the square, noting the positions of any and all obstacles and the various spacing, until he could picture the souk just as clear in his mind if closed his eyes as he could see it. His mind was at work, determining a number of plans for escape after he had claimed his kill. The primary focus was take note of the various possible exit routes, because after the deed was done, he'd have no time to figure out the best way to escape.

Tamir was not an ideal target; the best opportunity to strike would present itself in an open and public place. That always meant there was a chance of something going wrong, and though he knew that nothing could possibly prove too problematic for him; there is merit in this kind of preparation.

The archers on the rooftops in the vicinity were noted, their movements observed. The guard rotations were changed once a month, at the beginning of the month. This being the middle of the month meant that he was safe from those sudden surprises.

He took note of a piece of scaffolding left behind by a recent repair, or perhaps a restoration to one of the souk's buildings. The scaffolding allowed access to the beams that overhang the square, forming a potential entry point. However he quickly ruled out that method due to the fact that the beams were much too high over the square, and tomorrow it would likely be choked with the blacksmiths coming to present their wares. Jumping down from such a height would destroy his element of surprise entirely.

The best way in and out seemed to present itself to him upon contemplation of all of these observations. Given the guard position, both on the roofs around, and in the square itself, their rotations, the expectation of a crowd, the identity of his victim, it all gave him the foundations of a plan.

He would enter with the blacksmiths, blended in among their collective throng; he'd be able to get close to Tamir with no problems what so ever. Then he would wait for the moment when his strike and the avenue of escape would be in line, that perfect moment when his instincts would tell him it was time to go for the kill.

Altair could almost visualize the sequence of events in his mind, step by step, bit by bit, until the entire world around him was excluded and his mind was perfectly clear and focused on the singular act of taking a life. It was in moments like these, when his mind was perfectly calm and confident in the success of the mission, that he felt most tranquil.

But like all good things the feeling had to end and he came out of the trance to the sound of alarm coming from below. He glanced down and saw a woman had been grabbed by one of the city guards, there was a child clinging to her skirt, both were frightened nearly witless as the woman protested her innocence against whatever accusations the guard decided to lay on. Another guard seized the child, prying the boy's hands from the material of his mother's skirt, and the two guards proceeded to drag the struggling duo off.

Altair stepped away from the edge of the roof and turned to follow, having seen enough. He trailed the small procession along the rooftops; keeping a keen eye on them proved easy, the woman's shouts for help were unheeded as no one wished to stand up to the city's corrupt guards, but her voice was enough for him to navigate by when he had to lose direct sight of them for a moment.

He knew full well that the city guard would routinely harass the citizens for no reason other than their whims. This was entirely too familiar a scene, but one that he would never lose the dislike for. The corruption deeply entrenched in the infrastructure of the city was impossible to deny or ignore. The suffering of innocents in this way automatically drew him to action on the principle alone.

When the two guards turned off at a corner and unto a smaller side street, Altair saw his window of opportunity. He stepped over the edge of the roof, landing on the overhanging trellis shading a second story window. The structure creaked under the impact of his weight, but held on. From there he jumped down, landing on a wooden beam just as the two guards had passed bellow it.

The child tripped, his short legs unable to give him enough stride length to keep up with the guard pulling him along. The guard had to stop in effort to pull the now crying boy, no older than five, up, and Altair knew the time to strike was right. In that instance of perfect calmness he leapt from the beam right at the man, hidden blade emerging, only to be buried in the man's neck.

The boy recoiled away, instantly scrambling off in fright. The other guard swung around upon hearing the sound of his comrade's body hitting the ground. Instantly he pushed the mother to the ground in favor of pulling out his sword. Altair straightened and the hidden blade withdrew into its housing as he reached around for his own short sword.

"Filthy heretic, you'll pay for that," the guard sneered.

The woman scrambled over to her child, grabbing at him and clutching the boy to her chest, shielding his face from the sight of the corpse and the blood. The fear exuding from her was palatable, yet she could not tear her eyes away from him, and Altair was keenly aware of it. He stepped in between her and the guard, and the gesture seemed to assure her as her grip on her child became less frantic.

The guard lunged and it was over just as suddenly as it had begun, Altair sidestepped around the guard's swing with calm confidence, and with a single deft thrust from behind he put the short sword's blade between two ribs and deep into the guard's heart, ensuring an instant and mostly bloodless death. In the second it took the guard's limp body to hit the ground his eyes locked unto the cowering woman, who was watching him with a doe-like expression.

"Take the child, and return home," he ordered.

"I cannot repay you for the kindness enough, if there is anything- my husband-"

"Take the child and go, I do not need payment," Altair replied, flicking the blood off his short blade before tucking it back into its sheath behind his back. With that said he walked off.

In his mind he saw that as just practice, a light warm up for tomorrow. It had been weeks since he actually hunted a target that was unaware of being hunted. The search for Jamal had a different feeling to it, and it was good to return to doing the things he did best. Once out on the street he walked along it for some time, heading in the general direction of the bureau and the day's rest at his own pace, and in no hurry to get there.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

The investigation scene overall: You may have noticed parallels with the game, I am using a few loose parallels, but I am trying to tweak, change, and re-arrange things around to make it more 'fresh'.

Sandy's illness: Mild heat exhaustion, entirely explainable that she wears her leather jacket underneath her cloak. She'll learn. Who hadn't had one of those less than brilliant ideas?

**Director's Notes:**

First and foremost I want to apologize for this chapter being a week late. I had to bounce it due to my university classes overloading me with reading, coupled with a minor (read that as major) case of block. The overload is still going on, so I'm afraid I may have to switch to biweekly updates. I get 50-60 pages of reading material a week, and reading it alone does not work for me. I need to make notes or else come exam time I will between a rock and a hard place trying to study.

In all probabilities I make writing this fic look easy, its not. I actually do put thought into it, and after all that studying, my brain sometimes refuses to turn over. I'm not grubbing for pity here, just telling people my situation, so no one feels upset. Thank you all with your patience with my shenanigans. On the plus side, since I am a history student, odds are this fic will be getting better and better as I go. I plan to apply relevant portions of my studies here.


	15. The Merchant, Tamir

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**

* * *

Chapter XV**_: The Merchant, Tamir

Sandy woke up the next morning to the scent of food wafting through the bureau and into the yard. The yard was still shadowed and it told her that it was still early in the morning. Altair wasn't there nor was he waking her up, but the scent of food told her that odds were he was having his breakfast. She got up and stretched her limbs, feeling her spine realign with a series of silent pops. Leaving her things where they were she entered the house and padded over in the general direction of the kitchens.

"Good morning," the rafiq greeted upon seeing her.

"Good morning," Sandy replied, giving the man a cheerful smile. Altair was not there and she decided she should have known he'd be out already. "Anything I can do to help with the cooking?" she asked.

"No, it's quite alright. I am merely warming the food," the rafiq replied. "I have someone who actually cooks and she made enough for all three of us, so come, have breakfast with me."

"If I won't impose-"

"Not at all!" The rafiq chorused. "It's refreshing to have someone to talk to over a meal."

"Yea, Altair is hardly a conversationalist," Sandy murmured.

"So you understand my selfish desire to enjoy your company while I can," he laughed at his own joke and Sandy couldn't help but grin as well.

"I assume Altair is off early to scout again, right?"

"Indeed."

"Should be a couple hours before he comes back," Sandy murmured to herself.

"You'll know he's on his way when the alarm bells start pealing," the rafiq stated with humor in his tone as he scooped rice into a wooden bowl-like plate with a wooden spoon.

"He does that all the time?" she asked. "I mean, when he had done that in Jerusalem- Malik pretty much looked like he was ready to kill him!"

"Ah yes, brother Malik is most proud of his ability in _not_ doing that."

"Something tells me I shouldn't be laughing, but it's funny," Sandy tried to excuse her expression at the moment, but she could not hide the smirk well enough. In her mind she could see Altair and Malik competing for who was a better assassin, and despite the morbidity of the thought, it brought a small smile to her face. Next thing she needed was to decide on who she'd put her money on. She doubted even the professionals at deciding odds could call the odds on this one.

The rafiq set the bowls of food on the table and brought forth a pitcher of drink, and it was then Sandy remembered what was going on around her long enough to help the man.

"Brother Malik does have reasons to be harsh on Altair like that," the rafiq noted as he sat down.

Sandy followed his example and sat down across the table from him. "I have heard that there was an incident there that explains their animosity, but I have never truly dug in deeper than that. I very much doubt Altair would tell me if I asked, and I would not ask Malik- prying into other people's business, especially when you don't know those people well enough- my mother taught me better than that."

"And a wise woman she was." The rafiq murmured around the first mouthful of cooked rice. Sandy took the cue to begin eating herself, the meal was as simple as all she had ever eaten in this time, but she had long gotten used to simplicity. "I am somewhat surprised at how candid you are with Altair," the rafiq went on.

"Candid?" Sandy asked.

"He seems to actually revel in the attention you bestow on him."

"I wouldn't call that _reveling_, I think he's just-" Sandy paused, unsure what to call those moments she seemed to have with Altair when they were in any way alone somewhere. Their tendency to tease each other back and forth was something new enough to be unclassifiable yet. "I'm probably just like a new toy, fascinating until the novelty wears off."

The rafiq hummed not quite in assent, but he did not speak anymore and Sandy let the conversation lapse. Even without realizing she began to take stock of all the differences between this rafiq and the only other she knew. She had thought that perhaps Malik had been a little unusual as far as bureau keepers went, he was probably not much older than Altair, but now it seemed like they all had their quirks. Malik jostled with Altair like a brother, harassing him just enough to present an air of animosity, as an older sibling would do to a younger. Despite this unknown incident she was sure that the animosity was only half genuine, it wasn't strong enough to true loathing.

Otherwise Malik was perfectly calm and level-headed in all matters. Loyal, dedicated, a hard worker, and she had seen him at it, pouring into maps and charts with almost fanatical dedication. Sandy didn't like reading too much into things, but she was almost sure that half the reason Malik worked so hard at his post was because he wanted to prove to everyone, and maybe even himself, that despite his obvious condition he was still every bit the man he had been before it. It made her feel a little bit sorry for Malik, but Sandy was smart enough not to raise that sort of suggestion, odds are he wouldn't like being pitied by an outsider, a woman least of all.

The rafiq of Damascus was quite different from all that; he treated Altair almost like a father would treat a son, almost to the point of being potentially embarrassing, if Altair had the capacity to be embarrassed about anything that is. The rafiq was keen on asking questions, keen to get to know the friends almost as if to make sure that his child would not fall in with the wrong crowd. It was clear to see that the rafiq was a jovial man, fond of long conversations, and even fonder of telling stories. Odds were that he was often somewhat bored with the station in Damascus. However his airs of humor and kindness belied the skills that undoubtedly earned him the post, Sandy was not gullible enough to forget that he was still of _that_ brotherhood.

The differences among all the assassins she knew, never mind how in passing were almost enough to give her whiplash. The strangeness of everything around her only brought out her own feelings of alienation whenever she thought about them. For a semi-monastic, semi-military order the assassins were still essentially people. Each had their own life, their own goals, in some cases their own families. All seemed to be united in the ideology of their cause alone, ideology that she knew little about.

Where did she fit into all that, she didn't know. Did she fit into all that in any way, she did not know. Did she want to fit into these things, she did not know. All of these unknown things made her feel even more like an unwelcome outsider. All she knew was that she wanted to keep the friends she had made; Altair, Antonio, Fatima, even Malik and Faisal had found a spot in her heart as friends.

She ate in silence and tried not to dwell on the relative insignificance of her standing within the organization. She was supposed to be an informant, but what duties was she supposed to fulfill? Were these duties expected of her, or was her title indeed as honorary as Altair seemed to hint? If her duties were expected of her, why had no one given her a list of them yet? Was she supposed to ask Altair to teach her these things like she had to ask him to come along?

The more she thought of these things, the more questions came. The more questions came, the more she questioned what her place within the assassin brotherhood was. The longer she questioned her place, the surer she became that there was no place in it for her. No matter how much she tried to fit in, she never would. It was a matter of her being who and what she was, and she could no more change that than she could change her hair or eye colors.

* * *

Altair arrived at the souk and just as he had predicted there was a large crowd gathered there. The noise was so loud that it was impossible to differentiate any single voice from another and the meshing of bodies made navigation difficult.

He pushed through the mob, trying to find a good location to watch the happening of the souk from. The plaza's central fountain seemed to be guarded by men with weapons, city guards? Mercenaries? They seemed like it to Altair. Their presence told him that Tamir would probably open his table close to the fountain, which meant he'd have to get by the guards to get at the arms dealer.

The thick crowd meant that the mercenary guards wouldn't be to see particularly far into the crowd, if he stuck to the bodies he'd be able to get close enough to strike. If he got lucky, something else would provide an additional distraction for a strike. He didn't need such luck, but it was always a good thing to have it on the side if it came.

He hovered around the souk for an hour, moving around, keeping out of the direct sight of the guards, cloaked among the busy people who had come to conduct business. Finally the din began to die around him and Altair noticed the arrival of another group of men. Four more guards arrived; bringing up the total to fifteen, a number that was egregious but nothing Altair couldn't handle in the worst case scenario.

Among the guards was a man richly dressed in red and gold robes with a brown head wrap, his target. He walked with confidence, like a monarch approaching his throne in front of his people. The guards hovered around a step or two behind him, and Tamir was free to sweep his eyes over the crowd to his pleasure. Altair did not react outwardly to the arrival of Tamir; instead he let the crowd passively shift him closer to the fountain. He kept his eyes locked on the figure of his target, watching, studying.

One of the merchants from the crowd approached, shuffling his feet and looking rather nervous. This man was dressed in much the same fashion as the two he had sought information from, the overseers who were obviously just a step under Tamir himself. Altair watched as he approached Tamir with a parchment and the two exchanged some silent words that he could not overhear over the din of the crowd. The crowd seemed to shift; there was almost a current to the people around him as they tried to get a better position closer to the fountain. The atmosphere changed in the blink of an eye when Tamir turned away from the man and paced towards the fountain in agitation.

"Delays are unacceptable, I made that perfectly clear. Did you not hear me?" he stated, looking back at the merchant. "If your men can't fill the order, I fail my client and I will not allow it, lengthen the hours!"

"The men already work day and night with little rest and food!" The merchant argued back. "We will finish the order, but we need more time! The men are exhausted, the order is large, and the route is dangerous."

"Do not waste my time on your excuses. I want results!" Tamir argued.

Altair could see the storm brewing, every word the merchant spoke angered Tamir more and more, and yet the merchant was oblivious to the very narrow, very dangerous ledge he was on.

"We've doing all we can!" the merchant continued.

Tamir rounded on him with a murderous look in his eyes, "and it's not enough."

"Perhaps the problem is that you ask too much." The merchant stated.

"Too much?" Tamir asked, his voice dipping low for all of a moment before his anger spiked in a renewed crescendo "I gave you everything! Without me, you would still be charming serpents for coin! All I ask in return is you fill the orders I bring you! And you say I ask too much?" Tamir paused long enough to spit on the merchant who recoiled. "You dare disrespect me?" he demanded.

By now the crowd gathered at the square was watching the scene with almost abated breaths. The promise of a fight, or blood shed, or anything close to a spectacle was like honey to flies for these people. The dead silence in the air was broken only by the whisper of the breeze and the palm fronds swaying and rustling. It was the blacksmiths who were seemingly aware of the trouble that was brewing; Altair noted a group of them had begun to edge away from the fountain as silently as they could.

"Please, Tamir, I meant no insult!" the merchant pleaded following Tamir as he paced away, but the words seemed to incense him again and he swung around.

"Then you should have kept your mouth shut!" Altair saw Tamir pull out a knife from his belt and the merchant stepped away, but not far enough to avoid the blow when Tamir sliced at his stomach. The man stumbled back, clutching at his wound as Tamir advanced on him again.

"No! Stop!" The merchant begged.

"Stop?" Tamir asked, with amusement plain in his voice as he advanced on the helpless merchant. "I'm just getting started!" the merchant riled back and forth as Tamir brutally slashed at him, and each vicious cut sent blood flying through the air. "You came into _my_ souk- stood before _my_ men… and dare insult _me_?" the slashes turned into stabs, seven in total before Tamir was satisfied and let the merchant collapse, tipping into the fountain as he did, where his blood began to rapidly turn the water red.

Tamir returned the knife to his belt and turned to address the crowd, "let this be a lesson to the rest of you. Think twice before you tell me something cannot be done. Now get back to work, I will inspect the weapons tomorrow!" Two men moved to remove the body from the fountain, but Tamir simply waved them off with a flick of his hand as he turned and moved from the fountain.

A murmur passed through the crowd as people began to disperse, talking among themselves in frightened lowered tones. Some of the women looked absolutely shocked at what they had just witnessed; others were already talking among themselves. Altair remained standing where he was, watching his target. In his mind the spectacle was just like those he had heard of in the stories of Roman times. The shows put on in large arenas where man and beast were forced to fight to the death, where man invariably lost because a hungry, injured prisoner could not hope to fight off a ravenous lion, hyena, or another predator.

Tamir's rage had been like the rage of a hungry lion, unleashed it showed a side of him that made killing him justifiable, even right, even if Altair didn't have a reason to kill him before. Tamir had killed a man in such a brutal and drawn out fashion, and for what? His pride? The merchant had sought the best for those he had been overseeing, it seemed like he had been the only one who even remotely cared for those under him. The needlessness of such a death left Altair wanting to send a second message to the people, those who abused their positions would be removed, and for that Tamir had to die.

Altair moved, slowly and carefully edging through the crowds leaving the souk, keeping his eyes on the target as he did. Tamir moved to a table set at the edge of the square and sat down in a chair next to it. Two of his guards hovered around, and when the merchant picked up a goblet it was filled by one of his servants with a red liquid Altair suspected was wine. Tamir drained the first helping with a single gulp, and it was instantly refilled by the same servant. His expression spoke of a lingering anger; he was just looking for another target to take it out on.

Assassin and target locked gazes over the distance between them as Altair cleared the last of the crowd. The goblet stopped seemingly mid-air, Altair's gaze flashed to the guards for all of a split second, checking their awareness before they flicked back to his target. Every nerve in his body calmed in that moment as his mind cleared and his instincts came into agreement.

All too slowly the goblet fell from Tamir's hand as he got to his feet. It cluttered on the stones, spilling its ruby red contents in a great arcing splash. The sound was like was like a trigger pulled on a crossbow, in that instant Altair burst foreword into a sprint, his body conditioned by long years of training to go for the kill as soon as he saw the opening he needed.

Metal scraped against metal all over the square as the guards drew their swords. The fifteen of them were scattered all over, which gave Altair all the window of opportunity that he needed. Tamir reached for his knife but it was much too late. With a flying leap Altair tackled his target to the ground and buried his hidden blade into his lung, making sure to nick the heart in a single efficient movement.

"Be at peace," he stated, turning his wrist ever so slightly to turn the blade and widen the wound, to make certain that it would be a fatal one. Tamir attempted to say something, but the words died unspoken as blood began to froth up across his lips with his last breaths. Altair pulled the weapon free, already reaching into his pouch for the marker feather. With the guards rushing at him from all directions he swiped it through the blood welling up from the wound he created as the heart of the black market merchant gave its final spasmodic beats.

Straightening and tucking the feather back in his pouch, his eyes flicked to the guards; in his calmness he felt nothing save the knowledge that they were far too slow. Turning around he made his escape just as the town's alarm bells began to peal.

The tranquility of his calmness was shattered by the grating sound of the bells, and just like that time resumed its normal course for him. Altair ducked around a group of citizens, perfectly aware of the guards hot on his tail. Getting into a fight with irate bodyguards was hardly on his list of priorities, they would be vicious out of no loyalty save maybe the loss of their incomes. Not that he cared; they were incompetent fools if they had let him get that close before he was spotted. Altair had almost wanted more problems, more challenge, but apparently once again his opponents would disappoint him.

Running through another square he spotted three city guards, they watched him from their positions, wary of anyone who would be running when the city was in a state of alarm. However at first they didn't seem to be joining the chase, perhaps uncertain of what was going on.

"Stop the assassin!"

The guards jumped, flashing looks to the group chasing after him, and just like that Altair knew that his tail would lengthen. The three Saracen guards drew their swords and gave chase as well. The street ahead cleared as people parted to either side, pressing themselves to the walls in an effort to avoid any sword-swinging guards, and then in what felt like an act of spite, three more guards emerged from around a corner, instantly noticing the chase. Altair cursed silently, pinned on a street between the men behind him, and three in front he saw no option but to stand and fight.

"You will die here heretic!" one of the guards shouted.

Altair reached for his short blade, he would use the narrows of the street for his advantage. The citizens were yet to clear; some actually stopped to watch what they probably hoped would be his quick demise. They would be sorely disappointed.

The first guard to catch up swung high and Altair sidestepped him, lapsing into a familiar dance-like routine as he stepped around the man and drove his short blade into his back, yanking it in time to meet another sword as the first body fell to the paving stones.

A shout went on between the spectators as they realized just how serious the situation was, in the panic of rushing bodies Altair managed to dispatch two of the guards blocking his path. But the rest circled around, closing around him. Altair cursed, he had just barely missed a window to escape. There were ten of them and it seemed like the only thing stopping their simultaneous rush was the width of the street. Still he decided if he could dispose of the two blocking his way now, he might be able to break through.

With that thought Altair went on the offensive, taking a few steps to the right, and just as he intended the two guards fell for it, Altair sidestepped one to the left and sliced his throat open with one fluent movement. The other swung again, and forced Altair to duck out of the way, the ranks closed again.

"There's no escape," one of the guards, perhaps the smartest idiot of the bunch, jeered.

Altair backed away, keeping his blade raised in a defensive position. One of Tamir's guards attacked recklessly, exposing his direction of attack even before he swung by the shift of his weight. Altair saw it coming and closed in, grabbing the man by the neck with his free hand, stopping his attack with a proper application of pressure to his windpipe. Simultaneously he delivered two rapid stabs with his blade, one to each lung, before pushing the guard away. The man staggered, wide-eyed, and collapsed unto the ground.

Altair swung around, ready to counter more attacks, but the rest paused, suddenly uncertain as two of them exchanged glances. Altair used that opportunity to charge at the two blocking his path again. Both responded by attempting to sidestep the lunge. Their clumsy avoids actually gave him the window of opportunity he needed.

The path cleared for a split of a second, Altair ignored the rest of them and went to break through. He didn't care how long his tail got at that moment, odds were he could outrun the lot of them if he bothered, but he knew he had to get on the roofs somehow. Few would be able to follow him up there.

People parted when he ran by, some exclaimed in shock upon seeing the bloody weapon he carried, but he knew he couldn't sheath it on the run.

"Stop assassin!" the guards shouted.

The call seemed to startle even more people and incite a panic as they hurried to get out of his way and vacate the scene, opening a wide break for him to run through. Altair used this to his full advantage to speed up into a full sprint. His speed allowed him to widen the gap between him and the pursuit, and at the next convenient corner he took a sharp left without glancing back. The turn led into a very narrow, somewhat dark alley, one that was a dead end as he knew it. It turned again to the right around the back of a house and on the end he sheathed his sword, and with a leap caught the edge of an overhanging wooden balcony, hoisting himself up until his feet could grip the edge too, from there he scrambled up to the roof, using the gaps in the trellis as foot and hand holds.

Once up there he appraised the surroundings, checking for archers who might be within arrow's range, seeing only one in the far distance he turned and proceeded to the bureau via the rooftops, The journey was lengthened by the fact that he had ran in the opposite direction on the streets to confuse pursuit, now he had to double back and head in the right direction.

For the time it seemed like he managed to lose his pursuers, but the situation could change at any given moment and as time went by, more and more guards became aware that someone was assassinated.

Ahead of him an archer emerged from behind a sheltering tower and Altair had only a split of a second to decide if he'd have to kill him or not. The archer turned and spotted him, instantly reaching behind his back for an arrow. Altair's decision was made for him; he reached for one of his throwing knives and with a flip of his wrist sent the weapon flying at the same time that the archer fired.

The arrow whizzed past him, but the knife was dead on target, imbedding itself in the archer's neck. The man was dead before he knew it, and his body crumpled to the rooftop like a discarded shell. Altair stopped over the corpse to retrieve the knife. It was then he felt a sting on his left arm and glanced down, the arrowhead had just nicked flesh slightly above the elbow, rending open his sleeve.

He hated archers for this sole reason, he could dodge any sword, but arrows were a whole other thing, this time he the archer had apparently been slightly more skilled than the average rabble of the garrison. Standing over the body he paused to catch his breath, keeping his eyes on the nearby roofs for any sign of pursuit, but it seemed like he had done a pretty decent job of losing the tail. From there he proceeded to the bureau at a slower pace, no longer as urgent, but in no way at leisure. Running on the roofs was more taxing than on the level street, and he needed to slow down if for no other reason than trying to will his body to calm after a good chase. He could see the trellised roof of the bureau's yard now from his vantage point on the higher roof.

* * *

Sandy sat within the bureau, watching the rafiq glaze his latest creation, her nerves jumped into high gear as soon as the bells began to peal, now sitting there, waiting for Altair to literally drop in was probably the most nerve-wracking time ever, and yet the rafiq's perfect confidence and the calmness with which he kept working was comforting.

When Altair breezed into the bureau like a bat out of hell she jumped to her feet, startled at his sudden arrival, and as the rafiq acknowledged his return she heaved a sigh of relief.

Altair presented the bloodied feather to the rafiq as a token of his success and Sandy decided that now would be a good time to approach him. "Welcome-," she stopped, seeing the nasty rend in his sleeve.

Altair nodded his head as a way of showing that he appreciated the incomplete but clear sentiment before he breezed past her towards the kitchens. She could see that despite his outward calmness, his broad chest heaved as he attempted to catch his breath. It told her that he must've run most of the way back and was probably tired. She stood there in the center of the room for a moment wondering if she should follow him or not, and then glanced at the rafiq who was watching her with a smiling expression.

"Go on, he probably won't mind your company," the rafiq stated with a chuckle, waving his hand as he began a letter that would be sent to Masyaf. "There are some supplies you'll need in the pot next to the stove, the unglazed one."

"Thank you," Sandy smiled at the rafiq and turned around, dumbly following Altair's footsteps.

She stepped into the kitchen and was greeted by quite a sight. Altair was leaning over the washbasin, hood lowered, his dark, short hair glistening with water, but otherwise he seemed to have already gotten his breathing to calm down.

He looked up and she could see the fire blazing in his eyes, which seemed abysmally dark in the low light of the kitchen. She approached slowly and smiled, hoping the gesture might calm him down a little. The expression in his eyes softened and Sandy drew in close enough to pick up one of the terracotta cups off the table; she filled it from the pitcher of the sweet brewed fruit concoction before silently offering it to Altair.

He inclined his head faintly and downed the whole thing in a single gulp. "Should I leave you alone?" she asked.

Altair handed her back the cup and moved to the table where the rafiq's servant woman set out the daily food she prepared for the bureau.

"Will you?" he asked with doubt in his tone.

Sandy chuckled faintly and shook her head, "No. You're hurt. Let me take care of it." she offered.

"The arrow mostly missed," Altair replied.

"Excellent. I won't have to learn the proper technique to pulling one out," Sandy replied, moving to the wood-burning stove, just as the Rafiq said, there was a single large unglazed pot standing next to it. She lifted its lid and discovered its content; fresh linen strips kept warm and dry by their relative proximity to the fire, and satchels of herbs that she didn't know what to do with. "So what's the body count?"

Altair actually paused to give her a blank stare. Sandy figured he really didn't expect her to joke on such a morbid subject, but what was the point in denying that there probably was a body count given that he had to dodge arrows?

"With the target-" he paused as if to count all the men he killed today, "seven."

"Yeesh. Well- off with the wrist guard and roll up your sleeve. I'm going to treat that cut whether you like it or not." She commanded as authoritatively as she could, moving to the basin so she could rinse her hands. Even if she couldn't get rid of the germs due to the lack of soap, she could get rid of any dust or sand that might have been carried in by the house's constant drafts.

Altair turned away and reached for the buckles of the straps holding his hidden blade on. He undid two to reach the buckles underneath that cinched the brace to his arm and undid those. Sandy watched him thus far to assure compliance, but then moved to the ever-present buckets of water to draw some water so she could wash the wound.

"The body count doesn't bother you?" he asked.

Sandy pulled one of the linen rolls from the pot and approached him, water bowl and linen in hand. "Not at all. I think I actually found the silver lining of your homicidal ways."

"Oh?" he asked, amused, as he rolled up the sleeve of his tunic.

"These are hard times for all I image. But with you on the job- at least the undertakers won't go hungry," she stated with utmost calmness, looking up at him as she unrolled the linen. He grinned ever so slightly, catching the humor of her admittedly inappropriate joke. Then her eyes flicked to the injury to inspect it. Sandy was glad to discover that it really was small, the arrowhead was probably triangular and the rend was probably caused by it's end corners, narrowly missing his arm with its tip, indeed most of the damage was done to his sleeve, which was bloodstained again. "Well there goes another tunic, and just when it began to soften," she murmured, cheekily.

"You're complaining about that?"

Sandy ripped off a piece of linen from the larger strip, folded it up neatly, and dipped it into the water, making sure it was thoroughly soaked before she took hold of his bare forearm and began to dab at the wound to wash away the blood. "What else is there to complain about, the arrow did miss you. What are the odds that it was poisoned?"

"The city garrison does not use poison arrows at all," Altair replied.

"That's good to hear," Sandy murmured, feeling his arm muscles twitch under her fingertips. She gave the wound a few last dabs and wiped away the traces of blood. Then she moved to swiftly coil the clean strip of linen around his arm, making sure to tighten it enough so that it would not slip off, but not tight enough to impair circulation.

"Where did you learn _this_?" he asked.

"Dad taught me," Sandy replied.

"Your father?" Altair asked.

"Oh damn! That's right! I never told you what my dad does. I told Tony- Dad's a fireman, a professional at extinguishing fires. Firemen are also required to know certain things about first aid. But this is basics right here, it's more common sense than training." She explained as she finished wrapping the linen around his arm, tying it snugly with a neat tiny bow formed by ripping the end of the strip in two and counter-wrapping one tail. "You're good. Tell me if it begins to itch, burn, or show any other sign of an infection. I might just have a trick that will work for that in this time."

Altair let his sleeve fall, and flexed his arm to test the bandage. Sandy picked up the water bowl and moved to the washbasin, dumping the water into it. She was darn proud of her work right at that moment. The big lummox wouldn't have even washed out that cut, deeming it too minor to affect him. Still, precautions were best taken, no matter how tiny the wound was. It was also a test of sorts for her, to confirm if it was a certain particular look or his sheer presence that gave her the fuzzies. She was glad to discover that it was just that particular look, she could live with that.

"Join me," he commanded.

Sandy glanced back at him and noted the seriousness in his expression. She knew Altair well enough by now that when he made such commands it was his ways of asking, it was just one of his quirks; he never properly asked anything of this sort like everybody else. He moved to sit at the table, and she followed with a smile on her face.

"Somehow I knew you'd be hungry," she murmured as she sat down at the table across from him.

Altair did not reply, she noted the wrist brace was right back in place, it seemed like he never parted with that weapon unless he was within the safe walls of Masyaf. Her appraisal of his psyche was interrupted by the heavenly odor of food as he uncovered the dishes. The terracotta containers set at the center of the table contained what she thought looked like couscous, and there were cooked vegetables to put on top of it. The last dish contained what looked like feta cheese, but it was not kept in brine, and it looked slightly different texture wise.

"Shouldn't we ask-"

"Do you think he will join us, interrupt our _alone_ time?" Altair asked as he spooned the couscous from the container into a wooden bowl. Then he got himself some vegetables and a piece of cheese.

Sandy noted the peculiar tone in his voice, and she chuckled when she remembered the rafiq's urging that she follow Altair. "My bad, he seems fond of thinking that we have something more than we do, but you're _evil_ for encouraging it."

"I just do not have a way to fully disprove it," Altair replied before he stuffed the first spoonful of into his mouth. The sight of him barely able to contain his hunger amused her all the more, but she was going to pardon him for it. After all, he was a man; their appetites were apparently voracious in any century.

After the first mouthful he paused and watched as she got some food for herself. The vegetables were good and tender, but she caused Altair's eyebrows to rise when she stuck her knife into the piece of cheese allotted to her and transferred it to her plate without actually touching it.

She moved to pour more drink for both of them, when Altair reached out and pulled the jug out of her reach, she sent him a small glare which he returned with an infectious grin before pouring himself the drink. "Give me your cup," he commanded.

"And to what do I owe the honor of having my drink poured by the great Altair?" she teased as she moved her own cup closer so he could pour her the drink as well.

He did not reply and Sandy moved to sit down. He pushed the cup back to her and set the jug down and the two began to eat in quiet. Sandy wasn't too hungry, but if he asked for silent companionship during a meal, it was the least she could do, she figured.

Ten minutes later the rafiq drifted in, the smile on his expression vanishing when he noticed the silence with which the two ate. Sandy felt servile enough to help the man get his food as he joined the meal, and it wasn't long before Altair collected his empty dishes, having almost literally inhaled the food. He transferred the dishes to the washbasin and left the kitchen.

"I did not interrupt anything?" the rafiq asked.

"Not at all, I bandaged him up and then he demanded I join him for a meal, after that… silence."

"Perhaps I have interrupted something then."

Sandy quirked an eyebrow, wondering what it would be that he thought he interrupted between two people who hadn't exchanged five words after the first drinks had been poured. After a moment she shrugged her shoulders and went back to eating.

When Sandy finally finished her meal and helped the rafiq with the dishes, she wandered back to the yard and found Altair there, disarmed, but far from asleep. The town's alarm bells had gone silent by then, at what point she wasn't sure, apparently the house was sufficiently well insulated. Altair was now keen on languishing in the calm of the afternoon.

"I assume we'll be heading back to Masyaf tomorrow?" Sandy asked as she rounded where he could see her.

"That hardly needs an assumption to know," he grumbled back.

Sandy chuckled and sat down on the carpet, curling her legs for comfort, "Who knows? I thought maybe you'd have another whim to do something else. I figure you wouldn't like being readable and predictable like that."

He spared her a chilly glance from underneath the fringe of his hood and Sandy knew with an eighty percent accuracy that she had just gotten him by flipping his words right back around. She smiled in return, which caused the glare to melt away.

"Is there something you wanted?" he asked.

"The usual," Sandy replied, turning to look at the doorway, the last thing she needed right now was for the rafiq to walk in on them. She accused Altair of being evil for encouraging misconceptions, but she wasn't helping matters either. "I know that you're not here to play tour guide for me, so feel free to ignore me," she muttered.

"Just so you know."

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and noticed that he watching her keenly, his eyes were shadowed, but there was something in them. She glanced away and let the silence lapse between them.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Malik's motivations: In the end of the game, before he faces Al Mualim, Altair suggests Malik pulls back. Malik bluntly and swiftly tells him that his sword arm is 'still' as strong. I see that as a clue to him being rather touchy to any outside suggestion that he's in any way weakened. He'd probably be all too quick to try and prove that he's still a force to be reckoned with in any duty. Just a bit of my interpretation of him. Felt that it needed to be noted because the line is so passing that if you blink, you miss it, but it underpins my understanding of his character.

Sandy's thoughts on Malik: Perhaps a little bit about more differences in culture between then and now. To Sandy and her modern ways of thinking ('disabled people are differently able' and all), its just common sense, she doesn't see him having lost anything, and she automatically assumes such a supposition would offend him.

Couscous: To those not familiar with ethnic food, this commonly mistaken 'grain' is actually more like pasta. It's made of semolina wheat that's shaped into a grain-like form.

**Director's Notes:**

Well I managed to write this chapter with relative ease, and by relative ease I mean it was still work, but its on time! So that's something. I encountered a creative tsunami in the mid-week and managed to write that action scene, all of it, in about an hour. After that I spent a few more hours refining it to give more 'oomph'.


	16. A Sign of Things to Come

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XVI**__**:**__ A Sign of Things to Come_

Sandy almost welcomed the dawn that morning, the time after the assassination was hard on her with little to do in the bureau but sleep, and her body was so used to running on little sleep that it seemingly wasn't able to sleep for more than nine hours flat. She was awake at around four am, and spent two hours admiring the stars, and trying to tell apart anything that might look like a constellation.

Altair was like a clock, at around six am he stirred from sleep, and she smiled inside, deciding to be evil in trying to startle him. It would probably be nigh useless, but there was no harm in trying, right? "Morning sleepyhead," she murmured.

Altair sat up and passed a hand through his hair before glancing back at her. "Sleepyhead?" he asked.

"Twenty-first century thing," she shrugged her shoulders.

"How long have you been awake?" he asked.

"Long enough to know you talk in your sleep."

"I do not." Altair protested sternly, giving her a glare that told her that he did not take the accusation as a jest, but genuinely felt like she had meant it.

Sandy couldn't help but smile wider, her attempt to bug him may have actually fallen flat on its face, but she did get a bit of fun out of it. "You're right, you don't. I was just being evil."

"And you accuse me of it."

"Touché," Sandy replied as she sat up. "That was a stupid joke; I didn't mean anything with it."

"Do all twenty-first century people have such a sense of humor?" he asked.

"I realized it's a type of joke best enjoyed between friends of the same century," she glanced up at him, meeting his gaze full on. The scant space between them made missing his little grin impossible, but it was gone in just as fast as it appeared when Sandy heard footsteps.

"I thought I heard conversation, you two are awake." the rafiq appeared.

Sandy got to her feet and straightened her tee shirt, pulling the sleeves down to cover her arms as properly as they could. "Good morning," she greeted.

"Good morning," the rafiq replied, pleased immensely, probably with the politeness he was getting. "Breakfast will be served shortly," he added before turning and leaving.

Sandy grinned sheepishly and looked back over to Altair, who already had his hood up and was getting his arsenal. "I think I'll go help with breakfast," she announced before leaving the yard.

Two hours later the two were on horseback riding away from Damascus; the air was still somewhat cool, but was already heating up. By the lack of even the faintest cloud in the sky Sandy could tell it would be a hot day. She wore her cloak, but her leather jacket was slung over her messenger bag in her lap, no longer worn unless it was chilly in the evening. Even at night she didn't need it because she had a personal space heater in the form of Altair.

As usual Altair led the way, giving Sandy little to do than stay in the saddle and enjoy the scenery. Nyx apparently had learned to follow Talimar closely on her own. Herd animals all had one thing in common, they stayed together. Sandy watched the scenery go by and that first day of the return trip passed pretty much like any other day in the saddle, slowly. They took breaks every three to four hours to allow the horses a brief respite in the heat, their going was slowed down to almost a trot, but progress was made slowly but surely.

By evening Sandy spotted the Sea of Galilee on her left, a great expanse of glittering water. They skirted its banks, avoiding the small villages that dotted its shores and as the cliffs began to rise again they decided to find an alcove for the night. Somewhere a little sheltered from view where the smoke plume from their camp fire might be concealed, because as Altair had explained it, the whole Galilee region was a hotbed of petty skirmishes between the crusaders and bands of Saladin's men. It would do them no good being spotted by a group of either factions, the assassins were allies to neither.

The next morning they set out with the first comfortable light, riding hard until the heat of the day made them slow down. The second day was even hotter than the first, and still air exhausted both man and beast. By two in the afternoon both were out of water and after a brief exchange they decided to seek a well to replenish their skins, Altair led the way to a well at the edge of a small abandoned village. Sandy dismounted and spent a moment appraising her surroundings.

"This is uncomfortably open," she stated.

"We won't be here long," Altair replied.

Sandy approached the well, it was little more than a shaft dug into the ground, dark and seemingly bottomless, with nothing on the surface except a shattered lid stone to indicate that it had once been well tended to.

"Is it really safe to drink from that water?" she wondered.

"I've used it before."

"Ah," Sandy reached for the amphora and rope that were still there, surprising, or perhaps not so much. Maybe this well was used frequently by people, and some honor kept the travelers from polluting the old abandoned well. Before she could begin lowering the jar Altair took the rope from her hands.

"Let me," he stated.

Sandy got to her feet and took a few steps away from the well, glancing at the horses. She realized that while she had been admiring the well, Altair had removed the bridles of both animals, and there was a wood trough nearby, partly damaged and leaning a little on its side, but still able to hold some water. This confirmed her theory of the place being used like a highway stop.

"We might as well have a meal break here, why stop twice?" Sandy offered.

Altair had pulled up a full amphora of water and Sandy realized why he had demanded to take over, that thing would've probably been too heavy for her once full, it looked like even he had to heft it.

"Bring the water skins," he commanded.

Sandy nodded and moved towards their beast. She managed to get her own skins from Nyx without a problem; the mare was already chewing something, utterly oblivious to everything. However, when she approached Talimar, the stallion shifted, flicked his tail, and turned around, refusing Sandy access to the skins strapped to his saddle. "C'mon now, Talimar- don't be a mule!" She grumbled as she approached him again. Talimar moved away again, turning and stomping his hooves like a petulant child. It was then she heard laughter coming from the road.

Her head whipped to the side as a group of men came around some of the abandoned village buildings; six in all. Talimar's hearing was probably so much better that he had heard the approaching men long before she did, and it had upset the horse. She could see why though, all six wore billowing white cloaks against the heat and carried weapons, but only five of them had amour judging by the clutter of their movement. These five carried red helmets under their arms as they talked among themselves. What stopped her heart cold were the red crosses blazoned on their surcoats and cloaks. _Templars!_ Sandy thought, edging from the groups.

As if reading her mind the group stopped and in that moment she glanced at Altair, he already had his hand on his sword.

"Well look here!" the templar in the lead laughed, drawing the attention of the others. "What luck! We find ourselves a pair of infidels at the well!"

"Look at her hair brother, she's northern!" another knight argued.

Sandy felt Altair's hand on her shoulder and glanced up at him.

"We stopped here for water only, not for a fight," he announced, keeping his eyes on the knights.

"Well that's too bad, isn't it, Assassin? We were instructed by the master to kill any jackal we see, and the master didn't mean the _dogs_. Though there is no distinction between you _and_ one as far as I'm concerned."

The other five men laughed, all reaching for their swords simultaneously.

Sandy glanced up at Altair and instantly wished she hadn't. His eyes had hardened, freezing; getting a strange edge to them that sent a shiver down her back, and not in the good way. His basilisk stare was out full force and it was set on vaporize. There was going to be blood, she was a hundred percent sure that there was going to be blood. She clasped her hands in front of her and edged away, knowing what would happen any second now.

"Look at her! She's praying already!" the leader exclaimed.

"Not for myself, good sirs," Sandy replied.

"Consider yourselves blessed, templars. She will pray for _you_," Altair picked up.

"Filthy infidels!" The lead templar put on his helmet and attacked. His whole amour cluttered like a collection of kitchenware and Sandy ran back, hiding between Nyx and Talimar.

Altair sidestepped the templar before thrusting out his hand and burying his wrist blade in his neck, the leader was dead before he hit the ground.

"Bastard!" one of the others called. Each of the four full knights put on their menacing great helmets before they charged, but the fifth man hung back. "We'll chop your limbs off for doing that to our captain!"

"Come and try!" Altair replied.

Sandy hung back and glanced at the bridles that were hanging on the limb of a dead tree, she didn't know how to put them on, and odds are she wouldn't be able to put both on the horses without being noticed.

The ringing of clashing swords drew her attention back to the mêlée and she realized with surprise that there were only three templars fighting Altair. The last man was still holding back, but where was the fourth knight? She heard a clutter of amour and whirled around, spotting the fourth templar coming at her like a runaway freight train. Instantly she bolted, but she knew better than to shout in alarm, the last thing she needed was Altair to become distracted and get hurt, he was fighting three of them!

Getting some distance both from the horses and the well she swung around, hands shooting behind her back; she could out-dance a nearly blind templar, couldn't she? Those slots in his helmet probably didn't give him more than sixty degrees of vision in each eye, leaving huge blind sides. She'd just have to keep to those blind spots.

In her panic her left hand tangled in the oversized fabric of her cloak, stopping her from reaching for her knives, the templar bore down on her and instead of attacking, he grabbed her by the arms and spun her around, pinning her hands between them as he pressed her to his front. Her shoulder slammed into his, and she then knew that even if she had stabbed him, the knife likely wouldn't have gone through. His surcoat was padded, and he had apparently a full hauberk underneath. With her leather jacket off, the thin layers of the linen cloak and her tee shirt allowed her to feel the texture of the rough metal rings of his chainmail.

"Stand down infidel! I have your little companion." The knight slurred, his voice heavily accented with French.

"Don't!" Sandy shouted, struggling.

"Quiet, he's dead either way. But if you behave, we may just spare your lover a slow death. Be a good little harlot."

The other three laughed at the words, and one was dead a split second later as Altair ran him through. "Playing a damsel in distress now?" the assassin asked, sparing Sandy a glance.

"Kindly let go of me Mr. Templar." Sandy whispered, glancing down. There was a rock under foot, she raised her foot and rolled it with her toe unto the knight's foot.

"No. You had your chance," the knight replied.

"And you had yours," Sandy repeated before stomping, driving the stone with her heel right into his foot. The knight jerked, his hold on her arms loosened and Sandy threw back her shoulders, the cloak slipped off effortlessly as she slipped her right hand from it, in the process untangling her left as she turned to face the templar. The cloak fell to the ground as the knight looked up.

"You little witch!" he cursed.

"Why thank you," Sandy replied.

The knight pulled out his sword and charged after her, Sandy moved backwards, ducking under the knight's high diagonal swing, and then moving around him, pulling out one her knives in the process. "I'm sorry," she stated, straightening. Her knife's blade deployed and she flipped it from reverse to foreword grip. The knight turned and before he could raise his sword for a second attack she grabbed the front of his surcoat and thrust the knife up and under the rim of his helmet, straight into the hollow of his jaw where the chainmail of his coif was thinnest. In that moment she could almost hear the rings of his coif pop open and part, allowing the Kris blade entry until its tip hit bone.

The templar bucked as she pulled the knife free, blood exploded from the wound, Sandy released his surcoat and with a gentle push with her palm to his chest the templar toppled over unto his back as if he was nothing. "I'm getting bloody sick and tired of being called a harlot or a prostitute. I'm a virgin, and it's _staying_ that way."

"Hell! She's one of 'em!" The surviving knights exchanged glances and both attacked simultaneously, Altair dodged them both, running one through essentially in the same movement. Sandy almost pitied these poorly trained knights; they were no match at all. However they had chosen death when they chose to run at the mouth.

She noticed the sixth man, he clutched his sword, but he wasn't keen on entering the fray as he watched Altair fend off the final knight. The last was somewhat more skilled with a sword and desperation made him a better fighter. Then she saw the messenger turn and run.

"I'll get the last!" she shouted, giving chase.

There was a break in the sound of the fight behind her and suddenly a knife whizzed past her, the sixth man exclaimed as the weapon entered his back with enough force to send him toppling to the ground. Sandy skidded to a halt, kicking up dust and sand in the process. The sixth man collapsed and didn't move again, she glanced back just to see Altair kick the final templar in the knee, breaking the joint with a sickening crack, causing the man to shriek in agony; a second later he too was dead on the ground, impaled on the sword.

She turned away and glanced down at her own bloodied weapon. "Idiots, if you had merely let us by, none of this would've happened," she stated, speaking to the bodies strewn on the ground.

"You heard how their master instructs them; yet he forgets to instruct them in picking their fights wisely. While they could've defeated one of the junior brothers by virtue of their numbers, I'm not a junior rank, they're below me," Altair assured.

Sandy approached the sixth man; Altair's knife had entered nearly into the spine between the shoulder blades. She gruesomely marveled at how accurate Altair was in delivering death, he made it look like some sort of morbid art. She crouched down and pulled the knife out, however just when she was about to move away she also noticed the large bag the man had been carrying. "This one's a messenger, and it looks like he's hauling." She noted.

She pulled the bag away from the corpse using her foot and crouched down to open it; the first thing she extracted was a small drawstring purse that jingled with some coins. Next came out a bundle wrapped in cloth, she opened it a little bit to realize that it was some traveling food. Dried meat, bread, and a couple pieces of fruit, there were other such bundles in the bag, enough to feed six men for two days, no more. Underneath it all she discovered the message, a single vellum letter sealed with wax and a seal.

"Bingo!" she exclaimed, waving the letter. "I thought a messenger would carry an actual message, you know."

Altair took the letter from her hands and inspected the seal, "This seal is unique, it's not the usual templar seal," he announced.

"Whatever it is, it's pretty important for him to have a five-man escort of templars." Sandy noted, wiping both Altair's knife and then her own blade on the messenger's white cloak before she folded it up and stowed it away. "It's all yours, I'm gonna scavenge a little bit more." She added, getting to her feet and slipping Altair's knife back into its place on his belt, an action that surprised him enough to quirk an eyebrow. Sandy smirked as she picked up all the food bundles and the small purse and the walked off as he unsealed and unfolded the letter.

The food was set down on a rocky spot next to the horses before she moved to retrieve her fallen cloak. She gave it a flick which stirred a choking cloud of dust. "Gonna have to launder this." She murmured, throwing it over her arm as she moved around the corpses, rooting around their belts for their money pouches. In the space of seconds she had six small satchels that all rang with a few coins.

"They were heading for Damascus," Altair announced.

"Damascus?" Sandy asked looking up.

"The templars know about Tamir's death, but they are still keen on receiving their weapon shipment. The letter is not addressed, but it's clearly for someone who is in a position high enough to replace Tamir effortlessly. It's fortunate that this letter fell into our hands," Altair explained.

Sandy approached, "Can I see it?" she asked. When he made no move to stop her, she pulled the letter from his hands so she could take a look at it. The first thing that struck her was how beautiful the handwriting inside was, it flowed graceful, almost feminine in its ornaments. There was indeed no address line at the top, and at the bottom it was signed with a single, overly ornate _'– R_'. "Either they're employing female scribes, or-" she stopped there before she could finish that thought. "Yes, it is lucky we got our hands on his little letter. It would've undone all your work if the successor to the operation was named." She glanced up at Altair, only to see him nodding his head.

"Put it in your bag, and let's get the water we need and leave."

"About their food-"

"Stow it in Talimar's saddlebags. No use wasting decent supplies," Altair replied.

"Yes, sir!" Sandy got to work.

"And you're not going to ask what to do about the money?" he wondered.

"Nope. I'm keeping it," Sandy replied. The look Altair gave her was priceless, surprise with some dubiousness. "A gal needs some spending money. I may get fed and kept, but there are a couple things I want to buy."

"Those being?" he asked as he retrieved all four of their water skins from the horses.

"Certainly not frivolous things like perfumery and those girly things, if that's what you're hoping to hear," Sandy replied cheekily. "I was thinking just now, if it is about Templar business this little letter, why the unusual seal?"

"The templars are not supposed to deal with the enemy," Altair replied as he began to fill their water skins from the still full amphora by the well.

"Ah, so if push comes to shove, they can say they were just hired as messengers. Clever buggers aren't they?" Sandy stated as she moved pack away the food into the saddlebags of a slightly more complacent Talimar. "Now I'm just wondering what the hell they were doing down this road."

"They have a fortress north of here; I believe they call it-" Altair paused. "Chastel Blanc."

"Ah right, right, I heard that name before. I just didn't know it was somewhere north of here. I would've thought it would've been closer to Akka or something."

"You are confusing it with other Crusader forts."

"In all likelihoods, yes."

Altair allowed the horses three amphorae worth of water which the poor beasts lapped up like they hadn't had water for days, which really wasn't true, but still it showed just how much strain the beasts were on. After all the water was gone, they were bridled again and two of them got back underway to Masyaf.

Sandy felt a little uncomfortable leaving six bodies just lying around a well, but she knew there was little they could do for them. Leaving them like that, with obvious signs of burglary would make it seem like the poor templars had been victims of highway robbery, it would work in the long run for them, but Sandy's conscience was still panging at her.

That templar had been the second man she had ever killed, and the second time had been almost too easy. She had gotten angry at being called a harlot, was she turning into a monster if that was all it took for to drive her to murder? She could justify this and saying it was self defense, but the justification would barely hold any water even in the court of her own conscience. She could have easily used any number of the non-lethal ways she knew to defend herself. However instead of those, she had purposefully stabbed the man, aiming to kill. She could justify it in saying the less lethal ways wouldn't have worked because of his chainmail. That even if she kicked him in the universal weakness of all men odds were it wouldn't have brought him down. She could even justify in saying that Altair would've killed the man anyways; there would've been nothing she could do to stop the assassin, but that justification was perhaps the thinnest. Seeing Altair kill someone was one thing, doing it with her own hands was a whole other.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" Altair asked as they rode side by side on a relatively wide section of the road.

"No, but I wish I didn't have to hurt _him_."

The assassin shook his head and Sandy realized that he would be seeing things in an entirely different light from her. To him the templars were probably just one more enemy, those who would not think twice about killing one of his many brothers. Sandy tipped her head to the side, the thought of his many brethren made her realize that they were almost her own now. She wore the mantle of an informant for the Assassin brotherhood, didn't she?

She glanced at Altair and caught his gaze flicking away from her. "I'm alright, really." She tried to assure him, and maybe herself of that. "I just can't get over this one thing right now."

"You need to realize that while they would've killed me outright, you would've had a far worse fate in their hands. You should not see what you did as anything more than defending yourself. We had this discussion before."

"Yes we did, and I guess it's a little easier than last time, I mean I know I don't want to give up my life for them… but I wish there was another way. I don't think I'll ever be able to take a life lightly." She looked at him as the last words left her mouth and smiled. Then the expression vanished and she felt herself slipping back into her thoughts, still trying to articulate why she didn't feel comfortable with what she had done. There was no psychologist there to help her, so she knew she had to figure herself out on her own.

Invariably her thoughts returned to musing over her place. She knew that if she had killed with a purpose she wouldn't be questioning herself now. Self-defense was an awfully thin purpose when she knew so many ways to bring someone down without harming them too much. What justification did she have for taking a life? What purpose? She wasn't an assassin like Altair, and she could never be one. She didn't even feel loyalty to the brotherhood despite wearing their mantle.

The question became of why she didn't feel any strong loyalty to the assassins, even all the kindness she had received. Was it simply because she had not chosen to join them willingly? Was it because they were a brotherhood with no room for a sister? Was it because her loyalties conflicted even now?

At home she had the Immortals, they were her own siblinghood and she would defend them in any way she could. She would do anything the leader requested of her, even if it was dangerous. The parallel seemed to float only until she thought that Wolf would never request her to kill someone, and then the logic fell apart.

The Immortals were there to help the community through their own measures, risking criminal records in the process if they had to. They were united through the desire to do something when no one else would do it, but they would never kill. The assassins operated with similar goals, her long stay in Masyaf had allowed her to gleam that much. However their methods were exactly opposite, their main means of helping was through an act of violence. The assassins took the lives of those who they saw as detrimental to the peace. Did she honestly want to find a place among these righteous killers? Wolf had preached to the immortals first and foremost that he would not have killers among them. Past and present loyalties swirled in her mind like a dense fog, making her unsure of her thinking.

Tamir had been detrimental; there was no doubt in her mind that his death would do something good, but did she want to carry the support banner of his killers? She glanced again at Altair as she thought; he was riding ahead of them again, probably oblivious of her confused mental state. What would he say on the matter, if anything? Would he think her silly? She knew that Wolf, in his idealism, would look down on Altair. Wolf would expect her to look down on him too, but she could not. Altair was her friend just as much as Wolf was; she would never change her treatment of a friend just because another told her to. That's what lesser people did, she was better than that.

She couldn't even say that Wolf was right. She found herself agreeing with the assassins, killing someone was the only option left when no other means seemed to work, when other means were unfeasible due to the position of the corrupted. She wasn't stupid; she knew that asking Tamir to stop supplying the Templars with weapons wouldn't have worked. Who was right then, Altair or Wolf? The answer that probably would not placate her conscience, but it would help. Regardless of which of them proved right she knew she'd still feel awful, but Altair being wrong looked to be a grimmer choice.

If Wolf was wrong and murder was permissible, then what did that change? Nothing at all. It would merely mean that he was too idealistic; she could live with that knowledge. What if it was Altair who was wrong? Would she be able to live with the two deaths on her hands or the knowledge that he had killed so many more? Could she be his friend? It was perhaps Altair being proven wrong that she dreaded more, and not because of her blood stained hands but because she _wanted _to consider him a friend.

She looked up, surprised to discover that Altair was no longer in the lead, but had allowed Talimar to fall back so they could ride abreast. "Was I that buried in my thoughts again?" she asked.

"You're lucky that Nyx follows Talimar and not her own whims."

"Reckon I am," she replied. "Thanks." She glanced to the west where the sun was already shifting. It was still hours before sunset and their night rest but after such a thinking session she felt that she was on the verge of a breakthrough. It felt like her answer lay on the other side of the next rock. The thought of wanting Altair as a friend gave her a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach; it felt right to be thinking of him as a friend.

"You want to know what the money is for?" Sandy asked.

"You already said it wasn't for _girly things._"

"Yea, I was thinking how much it would cost me to get a pair of bracers like yours, minus the hidden blade of course. Tony conceals two knives in his, I've seen them, and that got me thinking. Maybe customize them to conceal my stilettos in such a fashion that I can draw them out when needed, and they're already in my preferred position." She glanced at Altair again as she finished speaking and found him staring out unto the road. She almost thought that he hadn't been paying attention and that she had been talking to air when he glanced at her.

"Seems like a solid idea, you're an informant now, you can commission a pair from our leatherworks."

"You don't think it's a bad idea?" she asked.

"I saw you fail to draw your weapon because of the cloak. That can't happen again."

"Ah yes, _that_. Those were the scariest seconds of my life. But if you've seen me struggle-"

"You handled him fine without my help, I expected as much," he stated.

Sandy smiled sheepishly, realizing that those words were probably as good as it got from Altair in terms of being told she did something right and well. The loose compliment made her feel a little bit better even if she was confused over the moral ramifications of the act. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and couldn't help but feel a surge of something. Altair seemed like the kind of man who would have high expectations of everyone around him, maybe it was his arrogance and pride, maybe it was something else, but knowing that she had met some sort of expectation made her feel slightly accomplished.

She kept quiet for the rest of the way until Altair decided to call it an evening and find a place where they could rest of the night. While he settled the horses for the night, she made the fire and an hour later she was sitting on front of it, her arms wrapped around her knees as she stared into the flames.

"Eat something," Altair commanded, setting down one of the templar bundles on her knees as he passed by with his own.

Sandy caught the bundle as it slid off her knees and before it hit the ground. "Thanks," she stated unfolding the bundle. Tugging one of the dried meat strips out with her teeth she drew it into her began to chew. Altair sat some feet away and she watched him from the corner of her eye.

"Altair?" she asked cautiously.

His reply was a monosyllabic grunt over the food to indicate that he was listening, Sandy grinned briefly before breaching into her woes.

"Maybe you can help me a little, advice that is."

"I'm not a confessional," he replied flatly, but Sandy could swear the corner of his mouth twitched upwards briefly.

"And I'm not religious. I don't need a priest," she replied. "I really don't regret what I had done, well… not that way. I know it was either him or me. But you know, my whole life I've been taught that killing is wrong. We Immortals have this one golden rule, our leader said that we can fight, but he will not protect those who kill."

"Sounds to me like he would turn you away just when you needed him most," Altair commented.

"I see why you would think that, but Wolf has reasons to make that kind of demand. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that- Wolf would never forgive me if he knew, he'd expect me of all people to uphold that rule as he was the one that taught me all I know of my knife skills, he taught me for self defense."

"You are using it for self defense."

"But-"

"Don't interrupt me. This man you speak of, his name suits him. The wolf is a cowardly animal that steals the prey of others. He too is a coward who does not see the truth. He is a child who is afraid of his own power."

"I rather not speak ill of him when he cannot defend himself," she replied. She wasn't going to argue to that the view of wolves had changed in her time. The name was fitted for their leader.

Altair turned to look at her and the crossness of that look unnerved her enough to break the eye lock and look down again. "He is not here to command you, Cassandra. His rules do not apply as long as you're here, you must decide for yourself how you live."

Cassandra looked up at him and then glanced back down. "I'm sorry."

"However, if you must have the structure of a code, the assassin's creed would apply to you now, and as long as you wear the mantle of informant. Three simple rules that will guide you as long as you travel with me."

Sandy looked up in surprise, was he going to actually _teach_ her something now?

"One, stay your blades from the flesh of an innocent. Two, hide in plain sight. And three, never compromise the brotherhood."

"I understand," Sandy stated.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Hauberk: A tunic made of pure chainmail; it had long tails and long sleeves and was a basic piece of armour.

Chastel Blanc: This castle was located in the city of Safita; it was one of the biggest forts that belonged to the Templars during the crusades. Located northwest of _Krak des Chevaliers_, you could actually see one from the other on a good clear day. Chastel Blanc also had an impressive view to other Templar forts in the area. Only the tower/keep survived to the present day.

**Director's Notes:**

This chapter is a couple hours late, but I had a little bit of trouble getting that final scene to flow. I wanted to keep Altair in character, it's hard to do in such a scene, but I think I pulled it off well enough. If someone disagrees, feel free to leave a review and tell me about it.


	17. The fallout

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XVII:**_ _The fallout_

The rest of the journey to Masyaf had been uneventful until they had ridden past the stone arches. Sandy was surprised to find Antonio there, apparently waiting and expecting them. He joined them, riding on her other side and Sandy couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable in the silence.

Upon leaving their horses in the hands of the stable keepers the three began the ascent up to the fort and Sandy soon found herself alone with Antonio as Altair went to the master to report on his mission, Sandy didn't feel like tugging along, and she wasn't required anyways.

"Welcome back, _Senorita_," Antonio spoke for the first time just after Altair was out of ear shot. He took her hand in his and brought it up to kiss her knuckles gallantly, causing Sandy's face to heat up a little. She didn't miss the eyes of a few of the fort's omnipresent guards who were eying the scene with keen interest from underneath the rims of their hoods.

"Thank you, Tony." He replied when he finally let go of her hand.

"How was the trip?" he asked.

"Rather uneventful, I enjoyed myself though," Sandy couldn't help but beam. It was true, she had enjoyed herself, the outing of the investigation had been oddly fun, even if she had to go and ruin it by coming down with the heat fatigue. "Would you join me in the gardens?" she asked.

"With pleasure," Antonio smiled, bowing his head. When he straightened he held out his arm for her to take, which Sandy did, if only to humor him, allowing him to lead the way. The exit to the gardens was almost opposite of the main doors, the gardens were really the inner courtyard of the fortress, a lovely place that always seemed to have the scent of flowers in bloom about it. She had been there only a couple times before, it was nice and relaxing, the sort of place that was conductive to meditation and contemplation of things.

"I assume Altair had been treating you well," Tony began when they were at the center and out of ear shot of anyone else.

Sandy wasted no time in letting go of his arm, the whole thing had been a little awkward to begin with, but still it was harmless enough that she humored Antonio with it. "He's been attentive, in his own way. He even let me go on the investigation with him, I like to think I helped him a little," Sandy replied. She wasn't sure if she should be telling Antonio all the details, so she wouldn't, but a little admission like that wouldn't hurt.

"He-"

"It's okay Tony, it wasn't dangerous. We tried to stay out of trouble, really."

"Tried?"

"Just had a little scuffle with some knights on the way back, we stopped at a well, and the bunch of them just appeared and decided to pick a fight with Altair for the obvious reasons. No biggie, we handled them- well Altair handled five, I just handled one- that's still _we_." Finishing her story, Sandy looked up, noticing Antonio's darkened expression.

"Just knights?" he asked.

"Well, they weren't _just_ knights, but they weren't some high ranks either, just some Templar grunts, as I said, no biggie."

"I see," Antonio placed a hand on her shoulder and Sandy wondered what made him upset now, it was clear that there was something of the sort, judging by his tone.

She knew that Templars were pretty high up on the list of the worst the crusaders could throw, but those had been grunts, wealthy enough to afford the equipment, but hopelessly broke in the brains department. She had come to the conclusion that their death was truly their own doing, they had been warned, and they chose to run at the mouth on their own. For all intents and purposes Altair and she had chlorinated the gene pool a little.

"Is Faisal still bugging you in the training?" Sandy asked, deciding to change the topic.

"Actually no," Antonio replied. "I think that he only acts up when you're there to see it."

"I had a feeling he was like that, well if you want me to, I'll stop watching- let you get on with the training."

"I can handle his antics now that I know he's only doing it to show off. There is no need for such a drastic solution."

"I wonder why he does it thought; you'd think he'd hate me."

"I do not see why he would hate you. I don't see why _anyone_ would," Tony murmured, his tone lower now, more husky. Sandy turned to look at the Spaniard and discovered that he had lowered his hood while she had been admiring the scenery. She smiled and turned back to admire the plants.

"You'd be surprised. Back home I'm considered too strange. People just don't understand."

"Then they are fools, _senorita_."

Sandy smiled faintly, "Thanks Tony." She wasn't going to tell him that Altair had once told her just about the same thing. Antonio's words had brought about a faint touch of déjà vu and made her think of Altair again for a split of a second.

"I'm concerned for your welfare," he began.

"Why?"

"It seems like where Altair goes, trouble shortly follows, he's cursed with bad luck. Traveling with him, you are inadvertently exposed to it as well."

"I don't think it is bad luck. These are dangerous times, I'm sure that it's just your average occupational hazards," Sandy replied.

"Wouldn't you prefer the safety of Masyaf?" Antonio wondered.

"Not at all, I trust Altair to help me if I ever need it. He hadn't failed me yet."

"I see."

"I understand you are worried for me, Tony. I understand that you probably see me as just about any other man would, but I'm not like most women. I know various things that most women do not, and I am capable of things that most women are not."

"It is still the duty of a good man to protect you."

Sandy frowned, she didn't like the suggestion that Altair was not a good man, in her view he was plenty good all around, in his own way. With him, a lot of things were explainable by the different way he did things, his own way. She understood that he was a bit of an unconventional thinker among the rest of the assassins, and honestly she appreciated that. Sure he was arrogant and egocentric, but that lent itself to honesty in its own way. He was probably the first person in this time who would understand why being self-reliant was so important to her, and she appreciated him for that.

"Tony, we'll talk again at dinner. I better run to the kitchens and tell the girls that I'm back. There's a week's worth of gossip that Miriam and Rahel will insist on filling me in on, and frankly… I better give them ample time for that, or else they'll give me an ample headache."

"Until dinner then," Antonio commented, but she could see the crestfallen look on his face. Sandy spared him an apologetic smile, sure it was running away from the problem, but she didn't want to get into a fight with Antonio of all people. The problem there was entirely that he didn't know that she was from the future and that her way of thinking was entirely different for it. She didn't think filling him in on that aspect was a good idea, so for now all she could do was try and avoid these awkward situations. She decided to visit the kitchens, but first she went to the quarters to drop off her bag and leather jacket.

~*~*~*~

Altair descended down the steps from the master's keep, the guards on the first level of the fortress watched him as he passed and he noted the expressions on their faces, they seemed to be amused, as if privy to something, and the two by the garden doors were outright grinning. Cassandra was nowhere in sight, which was unusual, he wasn't all that surprised that she had not gone up to the master's with him, she had no place being up there, but for her not to wait for him, knowing the meeting would not be a long one was atypical of her.

He spotted Antonio leaning on one of the columns, his left hand was resting on the pommel of his sword. Something in his posture unnerved Altair instantly, triggering his sixth sense, telling him to be weary of whatever the man intended to do or say. He knew instinctively that Antonio had not been leaning on that column simply because he was comfortable; he had been waiting for him to finish the meeting. What did Cassandra do or say that caused this in the space of ten minutes?

As Altair approached the Spaniard turned his gaze on him and their eyes met, in that instance all of Altair's suspicions were confirmed, Antonio had the expression of someone who was beyond furious, but still controlled, a dangerous combination that did not bode well. Altair decided that it was best to see what it was that got Antonio so bothered before the fool ruined dinner with his animosity.

Antonio pushed off the column and drew closer, his posture stiff with suppressed anger, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword until his knuckles turned white. Before Altair could react the Spaniard grabbed him by the harness and drew closer until they were eye to eye and it was then Altair saw the full fury of the man before him. "What do you want?" he demanded.

"An explanation. What part of 'keep her safe' are you having trouble with?" he asked.

Altair did not show any expression as he appraised the situation, gauging where and how far the Spaniard would go with his latest temper outburst. Antonio still had his hand on his sword, but his hold loosened and he let Altair pull back out of his grip. "She is safe and sound, not a scratch on her." Altair stated in all calmness.

"She told me that you allowed her to fight a Templar! Are you out of your mind? What if the bastard hurt her?"

"She is capable of defending herself."

"Just because she is capable, does not mean she should _have_ to!"

"I've said it before, Spaniard, how I handle the woman is none of your business. If you have problems with how I work, take it up with Al Mualim."

"The master decided to assign you that job, I have to respect that. Who am I to speak against his favorite _child_? But it does not mean I have to agree with the assignment. In my opinion you're barely capable of taking care of your _horse_ much less someone like _senorita_ Cassandra."

"Why are we having this conversation?" Altair asked while trying to keep his voice neutral after Antonio had just blatantly insulted him in such a fashion.

"Only you can ask the master to reassign Cassandra's care-taking. You will give up custodianship to me, and that's final," Antonio announced.

Altair tried to keep utter incredulity off his face; did Antonio honestly think it would be that simple? While he _could_ march over to Al Mualim right now and tell him that he was giving up the custodianship to Antonio, what would it change? Cassandra would not listen to the arrangement, he knew that much, but Antonio was clearly oblivious to the truth of the matter. "I refuse," he stated and stepped around the Spaniard, deciding that he had heard enough preposterous demands for one night. Antonio would have to learn the hard way that he was _second_ on Cassandra's preference list. If he coveted the number one position, he'd have to employ a different tactic than extortion and threats.

"You really are an arrogant selfish bastard," Antonio stated.

Altair stopped in his step, not turning to face his 'brother' at the moment.

"That's right; I called you an arrogant selfish bastard. You consider her a bother, a burden, and yet you would keep her to yourself for no other reason than the affections she bestows upon you. You revel in the fact that she trusts you so completely and worships the ground you walk on, but that's all it is. Were she to die right at your feet, you wouldn't feel an _ounce_ of remorse for it, just as you felt nothing when Kadar-"

"Watch your tongue Spaniard!" Altair warned unleashing his glare as he tuned to face Antonio. Where did the Spaniard get the gall to use those words? To suggest that he wouldn't feel something if Cassandra was hurt was an insult unlike any other, but to bring up the incident which lead to the death of Kadar? Antonio was threading a fine line and he'd be made to see his errors, one way or another. "You will never speak of _that_ incident again; Kadar's death has nothing to do with _this_."

"On the contrary, his death has _everything_ to do with this. Your arrogance and selfishness got him killed, and if I don't force you to see the truth, senorita Cassandra will be next!" Antonio protested. "I will not stand by and let that happen. If you won't give up the custodianship willingly, I challenge you to a duel. If I win, you will give up custodianship, but if you win-"

"_When_ I win, you will never bother me with this matter again and accept the fact that Cassandra prefers _me_." Altair could barely keep the hiss out of his voice at that point; the anger was there, boiling under the surface, begging to be unleashed. He didn't get this angry very often, but this time it was different, Antonio crossed the line.

"_If_ you win." Antonio stated as he brushed past him towards the courtyard garden.

Altair followed him, resting his hand on his own sword as he envisioned all the various ways he could make the Spaniard eat those foul words before the hour was up.

Antonio stopped at the center of the garden. "We duel until first blood."

Altair kept his expression level, but he knew that such a rule was not there to favor him. First blood meant that the first one to bleed in any way loses. One nick, one scratch and it's over. Such a duel indirectly favored tenacity and power over skill, and it also favored Antonio's unique fighting style in which he used his long sword in the right hand, and his short in the left. Despite the odds, Altair wasn't the one to cry foul on such a blatantly biased rule, he would work with it and defeat Antonio on his own terms. That way the victory would inevitably be all the more enjoyable.

Antonio drew his sword and turned to face him as Altair pulled out his own. The square off began as they circled slowly, each looking for the other's opening. Altair decided to bank on his speed to match against Antonio's brutal physical strength. One small opening was all he needed to win this one.

Antonio took the initiative, lunging foreword first, sword flashing. Altair parried the attack to the side, lunging inside on the counter, but to his great surprise Antonio caught his wrist, deflecting his hidden blade from finding its mark.

"Don't think I don't know your tricks," Antonio hissed, shoving Altair back, causing him to stumble a half step as his balance was impaired. Without losing a beat Antonio raised his sword so fast that Altair barely managed to move his head out of the way of the flashing tip as it whistled just past his ear. Altair stepped back further as Antonio went after him like a charging bull, their swords meeting time and time again as they traded blows.

"Stop holding back, Spaniard," Altair ordered as he parried another blow.

"Likewise," Antonio responded, sweeping diagonally again, driving Altair back further much to his frustration. What he hated the most was the fact that he was forced to hold back, Antonio's ferocity meant that closing the distance would be dangerous, and he was not going to win this by cheating with a throwing knife. A duel was a duel; he'd have to rely on his sword, speed, and a little bit of luck.

The swords met again with a resounding clang, the blades still vibrating as the guards locked, bringing the fighters close, each bracing their full strength into keeping up their defense, yet Antonio was still forcing him slowly back. Altair noted that he was being pushed ever closer to the steps separating the two levels of the garden.

"Perhaps I'll even take your title as the best of us after this," Antonio noted.

"You'll have to kill me first," Altair replied, with a fluent feint he sidestepped Antonio, freeing his sword. The Spaniard's whole strength carried him foreword, off-balancing him and Altair helped the inevitable with a push from behind. Antonio stumbled down the steps, barely keeping his footing. Altair followed without losing a beat, leaping down all the steps on the run, landing on his feet. Antonio swung around, and Altair went after him. Antonio parried the swing, rolling the swords, throwing Altair's arm aside before he followed up with a punch that missed Altair's jaw by an inch.

"Is that your entire skill? Dirty tricks?" the Spaniard demanded.

"Nothing you didn't intend to do," Altair replied, their swords meeting with another resounding clang, sending sparks into the air.

"Hah!" Antonio exclaimed, thrusting his sword foreword. The blades met again as Altair parried the thrust and lashed out with his free arm, but once again Antonio saw it coming and grabbed his wrist, shoving him away. Altair stumbled backwards and suddenly his foot caught the edge of one of the steps causing him to fall backwards unto them. Antonio grinned, bearing down on him with a downward swing. Altair rolled out of the way and the sword clanged against the stones, sending a chip of sandstone flying into the air. He regained his footing, stepping around his opponent. Antonio turned around, grinning triumphantly as his free hand went to his side, drawing his short blade.

~*~*~*~

Sandy entered the entrance hall from the passageway that led to the kitchens and instantly spotted the gathering of men by the garden doors. All of the entrance guards were there, watching something, and among them were a few other men of various ranks. Curiosity piqued she ran over to see what was going on, but the sight of Altair and Antonio going at each other, weapons drawn, was the last thing she would've expected to see. They were some distance away from the door, utterly oblivious to the gathering audience, utterly focused on their fight.

"What's going on?" She asked the closest man.

"Antonio provoked Altair into this one," one of the men stated, she recognized him as one of the hall guards she had seen before.

"Isn't anyone going to stop them?" Sandy asked, instantly worried. Why would Antonio provoke Altair into a fight, and how in the seven hells did one go about provoking Altair into anything?

"Feel free to try, but if you meet one of their blades, don't say we didn't warn you."

A particularly loud clang caused Sandy to turn back to the fight; Antonio and Altair were closer to the doors now, both up on the higher level of the garden, their swords locked guard to guard, both were struggling for advantage.

"Week's allowances on Antonio," the door guard declared as he looked to the other men around him for anyone who might take the bet.

"Don't think there's anyone dumb enough to bet on Altair right now, Yusef." Another of the men replied.

"I'll be dumb, what's a week's allowance?" Sandy demanded, rounding on the man.

Another loud clang made her turn to the fight, bet instantly forgotten when she saw Altair and Antonio locked blade to blade again, Antonio's blade stopped maybe only three inches away from Altair's neck. Then the two separated, pausing some feet apart, both breathing hard and trying to swallow enough oxygen as they circled, seeking for an opening.

"I'm not about to cheat a woman out of her money," the door guard noted. "You better stop them, as they're fighting over _you_."

"M-me?!" Sandy exclaimed.

"Something about a Templar," the guard shrugged his shoulders.

"Yusef! Don't be spoiling a good show!"

Sandy's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she realized what was going on. She had told Antonio about the templar! How could she have been so stupid?! She should have known he'd do something like this if she left him alone. She had been too nervous around him and ran for it, and now Antonio had apparently done something to provoke Altair. The two were fighting with apparently full intentions to kill. Deciding that she had to stop things she rushed foreword as they crossed blades again, "Stop it right now you two!"

Antonio reacted as if scolded, stepping back, his gaze snapping to her instantly.

"Stay out of this Cassandra," Altair ordered.

"Altair, I don't give a damn what he did, _both_ of you will stop this right now."

"_Senorita_-"

Altair had ignored her words and rushed foreword, his left fist connected with Antonio's jaw at full power, throwing the elite's head back. Antonio stumbled, his sword and short blade both dropped to the ground as he raised his hand to clutch at his jaw.

"Bastard," he ground out between his fingers, moving his hand away long enough to spit out some blood.

"You will never talk about Kadar again," Altair stated, sheathing his sword. His gaze then turned to Cassandra and she found herself on the receiving end of his glare. "We'll talk about your interference later," he added before walking off.

"We won't be talking at all!" Sandy exclaimed after him before turning back to her hurt friend. "Antonio-"

He took her hand and bowed his head, "My apologies _senorita_. I did not mean to let you see that." he stated as he retrieved his fallen weapons.

"Are you out your mind challenging him?" Sandy asked.

"_Senorita_, I was merely trying to protect you," Antonio replied.

"From what?" Sandy demanded.

"Altair is dangerous. Do not mistake his calm facade for what it is not. He is arrogant, selfish, and rarely thinks of anyone but himself. People have been injured or worse in dealing with him, and I could not bear it if you were among them."

Sandy crossed her arms over her chest, "I am perfectly aware of his flaws, Antonio, but I don't think he doesn't care about others."

"Then where is he now?" Antonio asked, still massaging his jaw.

"Tony-" Sandy uttered, warningly. "Right now I can't decide who I'm upset with more. One of the door guards told me, _you_ provoked him, don't deny it."

"I do not, and I stand by my decisions," Antonio replied. "I was defending your honor."

"My honor did not need defending!" Sandy rebuffed, "He has done nothing to dishonor me!"

"He put you in danger more than once!"

"And he also protected me more than once!"

"Why do you defend him so?" Antonio demanded, seizing her by the upper arms. Sandy found herself eye to eye with the Spanish assassin. He wasn't quite as tall as Altair, but the top of her head was still just level with his eyes.

"I will defend him against false accusations," she protested.

Antonio pulled her closer yet, their eyes locked as Sandy craned her neck to look at him. "You will be hurt by him, _senorita_, I could not bear to bear to see you hurt. The first time was enough for me, seeing you unconscious, seeing you struggle with your diminished- seeing the pain in your eyes- it hurt more than the injury I sustained."

Sandy's expression changed, she felt herself softening, how long she could be angry at this man when it seemed that he was afflicted with the worst of ills, "I am sorry Antonio, you're my dear friend, but- I do not think I feel the same for you as you seem to feel for me."

"If it's Altair-"

"No, Antonio, it's not him. I don't see either of you in that light. You're my friends, and that's it." With that said she pulled herself from his grip, sparing the man a forlorn look, before she ran off.

Her mind was muddled. Why was this happening to her? She didn't want to have any sort of affect on people in this time. In her mind Antonio feeling anything for her was like a slow-motion disaster happening in front of her eyes and she was powerless to stop it. She wasn't supposed to be here! None of this was supposed to happen! Antonio was not supposed to fight with his brethren over this kind of thing; she didn't want to be the cause of any schisms between two dangerous men like this.

What had Antonio said that made Altair of all people so angry? She stopped in the center of the entrance hall, wondering about the connection. The pieces of information hovered in her head like an disassembled jigsaw puzzle with the guide image lost. Tony had said people got hurt or worse because of Altair's errors. Altair had mentioned a name himself. Was there a connection? Was Kadar one of those people? Who was he, an assassin? There were still pieces missing, nothing fit together in relation to her. The only connection she saw wasn't entirely sound, it seemed like Antonio feared that whatever happened to Kadar would happen to her as well. Was that all that there was to it? If so then she could tell why Altair would get angry. She was a little angry at the thought of Antonio using something like that against Altair; it seemed like such a low blow. To add to that his suggestions that Altair felt nothing, he clearly felt something!

Now that she began to think on it, she didn't know who to be angry at. On the one side, she wanted to be angry at Altair for essentially sucker punching Antonio in the face, but on another if Tony had used whatever he knew against Altair, then he had gotten his just deserts. Tony even tried to use that on her, to warn her away. He tried to make her dislike a person just for a mistake in their past, it did not sit well with her at all.

Still in her mind, Antonio's words and behavior was more excusable, he had gone overprotective, he had wanted the best for her, and she couldn't blame him for that, not completely. Altair on the other hand had done something more unforgivable, he had ignored her words and attacked Antonio when his guard had been utterly down. Whatever Altair's reasons were, she couldn't see that they justified that kind of behavior.

She emerged out of her thoughts with a resolution to let things cool off a little, this was one time when striking the metal while it was hot would be a bad idea. She turned to the passage that led to the kitchens and walked down the corridor and past the double doors that led to the kitchen.

Inside the space was buzzing with the final preparations for serving dinner and she went ignored as she stood by the door for a long moment, contemplating things. The mistress of the kitchen eventually did notice her, and Sandy decided to help out with the plating of the food to get her mind off things.

An hour passed like that before she could blink an eye. Before the last course of tea and sweets was served, Sandy stopped Fatima and pulled the girl aside, "Fatima, I need your help," she announced.

"Of course," Fatima smiled, wiping her hands on her apron. "I think I know what you need."

"You do?" Sandy asked.

"Of course, I served the first course, remember? I heard the news; Antonio and Altair had a fight. I wont ask for details, but since you're here and not out there with them-"

"Of course she's here and not with them!" Miriam chorused in a sing-song voice. "You should learn the craft from her; you may just net yourself a husband. And as for you-" Miriam turned, smiling brilliantly at Sandy as a proud mother would smile at her daughter. "Getting two elites to fight over you? Cassandra I am astounded! You surpassed me!"

"Miriam, I did not orchestrate what those two idiots did, and I would appreciate if you did not make sound like I did." Sandy rebuffed, giving the older woman a vicious glare in the process. The woman flinched away, surprised and a split of a second late Sandy realized what she had done, "Oh I'm sorry Miriam, but I really did nothing- and I don't like it either."

"Miriam, let me handle this." Fatima spoke up, taking Sandy by the arm and leading her out of the kitchens.

Sandy did not struggle and as soon as the door closed behind them she sighed in relief. "Gosh I hope I didn't insult Miriam too badly, she'll make my life a living hell-" she murmured.

"Hearing you call them idiots, I assume you need a bunk to sleep in a place where they won't bother you?" Fatima asked, clearly ignoring her previous words.

"Yes," Sandy replied, "hopefully I'm not asking too much?"

"Not at all, I understand fully."

"You're not angry, Fatima?" Sandy asked.

The girl shook her head, "Not the least bit. Why would I be? Come now, I'll take you to the servant quarters."

The two walked in relative silence, Sandy trailing behind the servant girl. The path took them down the supply passage and through another, at the end of which was a large hall with a few rooms, like dormitories. Fatima led Sandy to the last door down this passage and opened it, "There's a place here. It's been empty for a while now."

The room was dark and Sandy moved around it carefully, she counted ten beds, five on each side. The light in the room came from a single oil lamp lit on the stone sill of the arched false window in the room and Fatima moved to pick up this tiny little oil lamp, moving across the room with it to light all the candles there.

"Thank you Fatima," Sandy voiced. "But that's not all I wanted."

"Oh?" The girl looked at her.

"Since you know about their fight- maybe you could answer a question. Altair mentioned a man by the name of Kadar, who is he?"

"Altair met you in Jerusalem, so you probably met the Rafiq there," Fatima noted as she returned the oil lamp to its place.

"Yes, I have." Sandy replied as she followed her.

"Kadar was his little brother."

"Was?" Sandy asked.

"Yes, he died tragically about three months ago."

Sandy's feet rooted to the floor as she began to see a connection. The jigsaw in her mind suddenly shifted. Three months was also the rough time frame of the incident she had heard about, the sole blemish on Altair's otherwise perfect career. "Geez," she uttered, _Tony really did aim below the belt_, she thought to herself.

"I'm not going to ask why, but- please don't tell anyone I told you, please?" Fatima asked.

"Of course Fatima, your secret is safe with me." Sandy moved across the room to the empty bunk that Fatima had indicated.

"I need to return to the kitchens," the girl announced.

"Thank you,"

The girl nodded, smiled, and left the room without a second glance, leaving Sandy alone. She lay down on top of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell to do next.

The relative darkness of the room lulled her into a doze from which she awoke only some hours later when all the beds in the room were full, and the candles had been put out. There was the worst kink in the small of her back, and Sandy realized she had been sleeping on her knives, in her shoes.

She turned to the left insensitively, only to realize she was not in Altair's room, and her trunk and all the things in it were no longer in her reach. She cursed silently, realizing just how badly she had screwed up, she should have gotten her things during dinner, and she cursed even going up and leaving her things there. Talk about a lack of last minute foresight, but really how did you predict that sort of thing without being a clairvoyant? It wouldn't have crossed her mind to think something like that could happen.

Now if she wanted them, she'd have to pull a ninja act on an assassin, one that was probably angry enough at her to be dangerous. Still she was beyond caring, she needed those things, and she had already dodged him once. If he was asleep, she could tiptoe in and out and he'd continue sleeping.

She slipped out of bed and tip toed across the room and out the door, continuing down the hall in a calm pace that worked to mute her footsteps on the stones as she raised the hood of her cloak up. Sure it was white, but if she avoided direct light it should work well enough to make her seem like a fleeting image in the gloom.

She found her way to the grand hall, the fortress was nearly silent at night, there were shafts of moonlight piercing through the windows and she artfully dodged them along the way to the stairs, ascending them slowly as not to make a sound. She didn't need one of the night patrols to spot her now. On the second level she had to dodge more moonlight and even one of the patrolmen as she fleeted over to the familiar passage.

At his door she leaned close and placed her ear to the wood to listen for a moment before peeking through the key hole to check for the candle. Seeing nothing but moonlight beyond the door, she put her hand on the handle and pushed down on it gently, making sure it wouldn't squeak. The door swung on its hinges easily and she stuck her head into the room.

Altair was asleep, as she had predicted he would be, relaxed and oblivious as she eyed him for a moment. It seemed odd that he was lying on the side of the bed closest to the door. However, seeing that he was also on his side, his back turned to the window Sandy assumed he had rolled over to keep the moonlight from bothering him. The deep and even rhythmic rise and fall of his chest was that of a sleeping man, confirming her assumption that he was asleep.

Sandy swung the door open wider to enter the room, keeping on her toes as she tiptoed in towards the chair where she left her bag. It looked like the bag was undisturbed, her leather jacket still draped over the back of the chair.

She glanced at the trunk under the window and then at Altair again as she moved towards it. _Easy does it, if I can pull this off on him… I can dodge anything, he's probably just like a guard dog_, she thought with a small smile. Crouching low she began to gather her things.

The frame of the bed creaked ever so slightly and she froze, stilling her breath just in case, _he's just shifting about, it would've been louder otherwise _she thought.

Suddenly the door closed and Sandy jumped, turning around. There he was, awake, on his feet and standing by the door. "I was wondering when you would try sneaking in here." He stated.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing here this time. Really.

**Director's Notes:**

Yes, I know that's a decidedly evil cliff-hanger, admittedly entirely intended to be that way. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, even if it was decidedly troublesome in bits. I wonna thank my best friend Raven for helping me polish out the kinks. It's a little bit late, but I think I'm going to switch to Saturday updates. I have less time to write during the week because of my university classes, Friday evening has officially become my 'polish' time.


	18. The reconciliation

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XVIII**__**:**__ The reconciliation_

Altair watched as she let her things fall back into the trunk before straightening and facing him. With the moonlight at her back, she had a halo that made the white of her cloak glow while the rest of her remained shadowed, an otherworldly pale sort of contrast that was unnatural-seeming.

He pushed off the door and made a step to approach her, but she stepped to the side, edging towards his weapons which were piled in their usual places against the wall and on the table. He made another step, and so she did, never once breaking eye contact. A thought occurred to him, seeing her move to block his access to the table, did she honestly think he would go for his weapons against her?

"Cassandra-"

"I don't want to hear it," she replied.

Altair moved another step closer and her hands actually began to edge for the weapons he knew she had at the small of her back. That confirmed her intentions for him and he knew he had to contain her before she did something stupid. He closed the distance and suddenly she feinted around him, swift as a running mouse, he barely had a scant instant to grab her arm before she was fully around him. Pulling her back, he caught her against the wall, caging her between his frame and the stones with his hands on either side of her head.

Her head snapped up, her eyes wide and doe-like, her whole body stiffened as she tried to press herself into the wall behind her. The fright was there in her eyes, a look she hadn't even shown him in the alley in Jerusalem when they had met. It took a moment to register but when the look did not leave her face he realized that she really was frightened of him. Not just the uncertainly wary of what his intentions were, this was genuine fear, and it seemed like his very proximity suddenly began to elicit it.

"Leave me be," she whimpered.

"We need to talk," he stated, lowering his tone in an effort of calming her.

"There's nothing to talk about," she replied.

"Yes there is, Cassandra." He hissed, and then the look of fright was back, stronger than before. She almost recoiled into the wall as if stung. It made his question what he was seeing; did she think he would hurt her? What had Antonio fed her? Had the Spaniard spun lies to make her fear him? Did she forget everything already? "Why did you interrupt?" he asked in a softer tone.

"Why?" she whimpered, "he would have killed you."

"Nonsense he-"

"I don't want anyone to die because of me. I'm not supposed to be here, and you weren't supposed to be fighting over me," she blurted out in a great rush, almost so quickly that her words were incoherent. "Let me just grab my things, and I'll leave you alone, please."

Altair stepped back slowly; the plea was delivered in such a tortured, pathetic tone that he couldn't deny the fact that she was terrified out of her wits of him. He knew instinctively that talking to her now would just make it worse, and it frustrated him to no end. Whatever Antonio had said or done worked well enough. They may not have settled the duel in a way that was satisfactory to him, but the Spaniard had won in the end.

He mutely watched as Cassandra gathered her things, grabbed her bag and coat, and left in a great rush. At the first instance he felt nothing, almost numbed by the fact that Antonio had seemingly won, but then the anger came. Antonio may have won the battle, but he'd never win the war.

Altair knew Cassandra; he knew her more intimately than Antonio ever would. She was the type of creature that could not hold anger, or indeed any negative emotion for long. He had seen proof of that when she had lost her anger at Jamal after what he had done to her. He knew that in time she would talk to him again. When that invariably happened, he'd make sure that Antonio never had a chance like this again.

~*~*~*~

Sandy returned to the servant quarters as silently as she could, once inside the room Fatima had showed her, she moved towards her bed and working in the dark tried put her things into order. Her hands trembled ever so slightly, complicating the task, the memory of Altair's look there in front of her eyes, as if they were closed, but no, it wasn't a dream, it was a waking nightmare.

He had been angry, he had been practically hissing with it. She had never seen Altair get angry with her, or even anyone else. Even when he was fighting he was calm and almost morbidly graceful. Now that she had seen that anger, she decided that it was the scariest thing ever. Joking and teasing him, seeing nothing but that charming grin, she had almost forgotten that he was an assassin, a dangerous man, a killer. She had begun to see him as a friend, and yet once again she managed to screw it up.

With her things neatly ordered and draped over the head and footboard of the bed, she quickly changed into her sleeping chemise. It was really the first time she had worn the chemise because of its thin material. Normally sleeping next to a man didn't exactly make her comfortable enough to sleep in this time's version of negligee. The chemise had come from Miriam, and that told Sandy all she needed to know, Miriam was quite the consummate matchmaker now that she was happily married, she wanted everyone to experience her joy.

For Sandy it wasn't an option, so she preferred the thicker gray tunic and pants she got as well. They were modest, as far as modesty was permissible in such a fundamentally scandalous situation in the twelfth century. She hung her clothing, and climbed under the covers, curling into a ball, willing her body to fall asleep, and maybe not wake up for a week.

When Sandy woke up, she was almost more tired than when she had gone to sleep. The room was still just as dark, though now empty, meaning that it was morning, but she couldn't tell how far into it. The women could have left only five minutes ago, and to her it would seem like an eternity. The lack of window meant that she couldn't see the sun, and that threw her off the day cycle utterly.

She rolled unto her back, splaying out under the covers, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what was different this time. The events of the previous day drained her mentally and emotionally. Having an argument with someone close to her always left her drained and feeling pretty rotten and hollow. The next morning things would turn worse as sleep just heightened the guilt and dulled everything else. She knew that the whole thing happened because she told Antonio about the Templar, there was no denying that. But why did this time feel somewhat different? Was it just the guilt festering until it almost hurt?

Altair had scared her the night before, but the guilty pain flared when she thought of him. He had wanted to speak, and she brushed him off because of fear. Sandy liked to think she was brave, but in this instance she had acted like the worst sort of coward.

She threw off the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up fully. From there she got up and went through the mechanical motions of dressing herself before she emerged from the chamber and made her way to the entrance hall, it would be a good place to figure out what time it was.

The sound of combat from the front courtyard told her that breakfast was over; the seemingly endless training of the younger boys was in full swing. The realization that she had slept through breakfast made her mumble, she had skipped dinner last night, and now breakfast, she would be beyond hungry by the time the midday meal rolled around.

She exited the fortress and moved towards the sparring rink, feeling vaguely out of place and useless without Altair or Antonio to bug. She really didn't have a purpose in Masyaf; her entire reason for being here had been Altair. She noted some of the older boys and their individual tutors, but her main focus was the group of younger boys in the arena being drilled in the rudimentary skills of using knives.

That's when she spotted Faisal and Antonio; she could see the bruise Antonio was sporting on his chin from nearly thirty feet, she smiled sadly but remained where she was, watching the rink. She missed them and there was no use denying it, but she also knew that she had to keep away, if they fought again, one of them might not walk away from it, and that terrified her even more than Altair's anger. _Since when have I begun to care so much?_ She asked herself.

Then there was a hand on her shoulder and Sandy jumped, turning around, hand instinctively going to the knives at her back, then she saw it was only Antonio and her hand dropped. Had she really spaced out like that?

"Good morning, _senorita_." He bowed his head.

"Morning, Tony. Morning Faisal."

"Morning," the boy mumbled.

"Would you honor us with your company?" Antonio asked.

"Sorry Tony, but no. I can't. I just don't feel like doing much today and I don't think you need a mindless zombie sitting there."

"Is it about yesterday?" Antonio asked.

Sandy sighed, but decided not to beat around the bush in the interest of not looking like some sort of fickle creature. "Truthfully? Yes." He seemed surprised by the harsh edge of her words, the small smile on his face dropped and Sandy sighed again. "I'm sorry Tony, but when my friends fight I just end up feeling rotten. This time it's even worse, I also feel partly to blame. If I hadn't told you about that Templar I killed, none of this would've happened."

"I see-"

"You killed a Templar?" Faisal asked.

"Self defense," Sandy replied, sparing Faisal a glance. She noted the way his eyes widened and for a moment it looked like he was vaguely impressed with her meager accomplishment, which just made Sandy feel worse. That's what she was reduced to, impressing assassin trainees with petty acts of what they would perceive as valor.

"_Senorita_, you should not feel upset. I started the fight proper, had I known it would affect you as such-" he stopped.

"Its okay Tony, what's done is done, right?"

His hand gripped the hilt of his sword as he lapsed into thoughts, "while your words gave me the reason, it was ultimately my choice to pursue a confrontation. So you, my lady, mustn't feel bad."

"Well we're a merry little bunch, aren't we?" Sandy asked sarcastically.

"I have thought it over while trying to sleep the previous night, and this morning I have come to the conclusion that I was in error when I supposed Altair feels nothing for you."

"If looks could kill, half the fort would have been dead before breakfast was over," Faisal murmured.

"What do you mean?" Sandy asked, looking at the trainee.

Faisal opened his mouth to reply but the glare he received from Antonio silenced him quickly. "Faisal, take half an hour's break."

The boy nodded, seeing something under the rim of Antonio's hood that Sandy didn't. However whatever Faisal saw finally killed his big dumb smile and he left, looking remotely dejected. Sandy sighed, just what was going on in Antonio's mind these days, she wondered.

Antonio placed his hand at her elbow and motioned for her to follow, which Sandy reluctantly did. They walked slowly, practically arm in arm towards the fortress' main gates and past them unto the path that led to the village where there were less assassins who would overhear.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Sandy asked.

Antonio turned his head and smiled, "They're worth that much?"

"And more," Sandy smiled back.

He shook his head faintly and then bowed his head, "_Senorita_ I must confess to you if I am to see you smile again, even if that smile is not directed at me. Please let me speak, because it is difficult for me. I am not skilled in rhetoric; I have lived my life believing that actions are worth more than words."

Sandy listened as they strolled, his voice seemed distant now, as if he was talking to someone other than her, and yet the words were directed to her. She put her hands on his arm, offering him some support.

"I ask you to forgive my foolish actions yesterday. Please understand that what I did; I did out of concern and care for you. When you told me of the Templar, all I could think of is what happened four months ago-"

"Kadar's death?" Sandy asked.

"_Si_," he whispered. "Where did you find out?"

"I reckoned," Sandy lied, after all, Fatima had sworn her to secrecy. "Altair doesn't get angry often, then he mentioned the name, you mentioned people getting hurt- you know how my mind works."

"Of course, pardon me, one as brilliant as you, _senorita_-"

"Please go on," Sandy murmured, patting his arm.

"Yes, whatever happened four months ago, Altair had a part in it, of that I am sure. His arrogance had always been there- I've seen it- from the day he received his white tunic of a novice assassin, each rank he attained, each difficult mission he fulfilled made him more and more arrogant-"

"Tony," Sandy murmured.

"I'm sorry," he shook his head, "I guess what I'm trying to say that it is ingrained in him, and finally the day came when it happened. This brings up the Templar- when I found out- I cannot bear to lose one more person I care for. You are precious to me."

"I understand," Sandy whispered, blushing faintly.

"Altair is charged with your protection, and when I discovered about the Templar, all I could think of was- I had to get you away before it happened again. Jamal had come close already and I knew that no one is that lucky to avoid death repeatedly. The Knights Templar are fierce adversaries, you were fortunate to encounter what was probably a recent initiate, someone who was not as well trained as their higher ranks- I got angry-"

"I don't blame you."

"I challenged him to a duel; winner gets the custodianship- at first he refused. He arrogantly thinks that he can protect you. I got angrier and angrier- and before I knew it I just said it. It doesn't matter what exactly I said, but I brought up Kadar to incite him into a fight, to get my way. I got exactly what I deserved."

"Tony," Sandy titled her head to the side. Suddenly she understood that truly Altair was justified in what he had done, Tony had truly opened mouth and inserted foot with his reckless words. "That just proves he cares. If he was truly cold, he wouldn't have gotten angry."

"I realized that." Antonio raised his hand, cupping her chin softly. "Forgive me _Senorita_ for causing you pain. _Mea maxima culpa_." He leaned foreword and placed a quick kiss on her forehead before pulling away.

Sandy smiled and couldn't help but blush at the innocence of his apology. He may not have been skilled in rhetoric, but he was skilled in something rhetoric were often short on, honesty. "I may not be a nun or a priest, Tony- but I absolve you of guilt, I forgive you. Thank you for telling me the truth. Now I can fix things."

"I'm-" he stopped suddenly, straightened and stepped away as his expression straightened. Then he seemed to turn to look at something else and Sandy turned her head to follow his line of sight and realized that standing there on the path from the stables to the fortress was Altair himself.

Sandy's stiffened when she saw the look in his normally warm brown eyes solidify into a glacial mask that sent chills through her body. Suddenly Faisal's words made a lot of sense. How long had he been there? What had he seen and heard?

"Altair-" she began, but his look changed slightly.

"Shall I leave you two alone, _senorita_?" Antonio asked.

"No, Antonio." Sandy turned to him, "In fact. I believe you have something to tell Altair, to the tune of-"

"Ah yes," Antonio turned. "I apologize."

The silence hung for a long moment as Altair made a few steps foreword, increasing Sandy's anxiety and nervousness. Suddenly she feared the breakout of another vicious fight between the two men, one that would happen right here in the middle of the street, one that she may not be able to stop this time.

"That's it?" Altair asked dubiously. "What exactly are you apologizing for, Spaniard? If this your attempt to win her favor by doing what she asks, it's not going to work."

"Altair, there was a slight misunderstanding here, Tony-"

"Cassandra, I do not want to hear whatever lies he had fed you to make you forget everything."

"What?" Sandy stuttered, "He fed me no lies, nor did I forget anything! I'm not an airhead or a floozy, and if you think I am then-" he was glaring again and just like that Sandy found herself cowed.

"What lies did I feed her, pray tell," Tony stepped in, instantly defensive and slightly angered.

Sandy could feel the confrontation building, and it seemed to be brewing up like a storm on the horizon.

"You know full well what lies you fed her if she shrinks as she does," Altair replied as he approached, making a straight line for Antonio.

In that moment it was like a light bulb lit up in Sandy's head, she understood what he meant, and it all but bowled her over. She stepped between the two men, putting a hand on each of their chests as her face began to heat up. Was Altair in fact jealous? The thought hovered in her mind making her suddenly very self-conscious. She banished the feelings into the back of her mind in favor of resolving the imminent crisis.

"Altair," she began. "Has anyone ever told you that you have the glare of a basilisk?" she asked. "Well okay, it can't exactly kill or turn people to stone- and we can be thankful for that- but you get the idea."

Altair straightened and his whole posture seemed to relax, Sandy let her hands drop to her sides as she watched him. The cold look in his eyes vanished, replaced by one of slight quizzing. She spared him a small shy smile and it seemed to answer his unspoken question.

"_Senorita_, I best be going now. A prudent man knows when he is in the way," Antonio stated, bowing gallantly. Then he brushed past them and was gone before Sandy could do articulate anything to stop him, though she did see the giant smile on his face. Something told her that his escape had nothing to do with being a prudent man, and more to do with not laughing himself into a coma in their presence. She blushed when she realized what he became unintentionally privy to, she had all but admitted that Altair scared her witless without even trying.

She turned to the assassin, watching him for a moment while he was apparently glaring at Antonio's retreating back, she sighed softly, glad that things seemed to have resolved themselves somehow.

"I think I'm going to throw myself to the mercy of the girls, I haven't had dinner last night, and I slept through breakfast-" she murmured, edging around the stoic man in front of her.

He seized her hand and pulled her back, Sandy turned, glancing first at their joined hands and then at him. They exchanged looks as he approached, dropping her hand. "Come."

Sandy smiled broadly and fell in step beside him, "I'm glad we worked this situation out."

"Next time don't mention any more of your conquests to him," Altair stated.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" she asked, placing her hand on his arm.

"You ask too many questions."

"Well excuse me," Sandy pouted, it didn't look like he had been hurt, but she hadn't seen the fight beginning to end, so how was she to know. They passed through the gates of the fortress and Sandy noted the number of eyes that turned to watch. It unnerved her to see such interest from people who she didn't know, but the looks didn't linger long enough to truly bother her.

"We'll be the subject of the rumor mill for days at this rate," Altair noted in a half-joking seriousness.

"Do you care? I don't. You know, as my friend back home would say- If they want to talk, let's give them something to talk about."

"Are all your friends insane?" he asked as they entered the fortress.

"Every single one." Sandy replied meaningfully, earning herself a playful little glare that made her smile. Things were decidedly back to normal and that put a new spring in her step.

At that moment a man approached Altair, "Well, well, well. If it isn't the Great Altair and the _lady_ informant, getting along again?"

"What do you want?" Altair demanded.

"I've been sent to find you. The master wishes to see you both, better hurry along, I'm getting the feeling that it's serious." He walked off, vaguely amused at whatever he knew and Sandy couldn't help but think the worst right at that moment.

"Do you think it's about the fight?"

Altair did not reply to her, but she decided that it was probably didn't matter. She hummed softly and fell behind him as they began to make their way to the master's study. Still as much as she tried to remain serious, she couldn't help but smile just ever so slightly. Maybe it was another mission, another adventure.

One foot in the study her hopes were dashed, Antonio was there, and that meant only one thing. Suddenly she felt very much like she had been sent to the principle's office in high school again. It hadn't been all that common for her to be in trouble in high school, but she did have the dubious honour of having been suspended twice, but this time it was going to be different.

She hung behind Altair, though in no way was she hiding, she just wasn't sure what was going on, other than it wasn't anything good. The master paced in front of his table and when he turned to Altair she could see the displeasure there.

"You summoned me, Master?" Altair asked.

"I summoned all three of you here because of the events yesterday. I would've expected such things from the juniors, but not from two of my best men," the master began, diving into the reprimands immediately.

Altair and Antonio remained quiet, and Sandy decided that it was best to emulate them and keep a straight face. Then the master's gaze leveled on her and suddenly Sandy became nervous. The look returned to Antonio and then to Altair and Sandy found herself trying to contain her nervous fiddling with the sleeve hems of her cloak.

"What made you two decide it was acceptable to fight in such a childish matter?"

"Well, sir-" Antonio spoke up. "It was a matter of my perception that Altair was not doing his assigned duties well enough, he routinely and recklessly endangers the Lady Cassandra's life while he is assigned to keep her safe."

"And she is safe," Altair protested.

"Enough!" the master interjected before they could renew their fight then and there. "Antonio, by what I understand from the observations of others, your behavior towards our _guest_ has been unbecoming of one of her rank as well. Fraternization with female informants is forbidden as it could lead to the compromise of the brotherhood."

"I understand that sir," Antonio voiced.

"Then why am I told that you are courting her?" the master asked.

Antonio bowed his head and Sandy tried to keep her face from heating up, was that what Tony had been trying to do? She glanced at Altair and spotted his glowering look at Antonio, tinted by just a little bit of smugness. She then glanced at the master and stepped foreword, "Sir… if I may?"

The master's eyes turned to her and she almost blanched, but held herself together by clasping her hands behind her back.

"I wasn't aware of that rule until just a moment ago. Had I known, I would not have allowed Antonio to behave as he does. I do not wish to cause problems during my stay here."

"Of course. Which brings up the matter of why you didn't know about that rule." the master glanced at Altair meaningfully and so did Sandy.

"She made it clear that such a relationship is not something she desires with anyone, there was no need to tell her of the rule."

The master's expression changed to one of annoyance for all of a split second, Sandy noted the faint shift. "Seeing the circumstances I will not discipline you, but it will not happen again. I do not want this to become an example for the rest of the men."

"It won't happen again, sir." Antonio stated.

"Then you are dismissed, Antonio."

The Spaniard nodded his head, bowed, and moved to the stairs. Sandy was surprised how easily the matter was dismissed, she would have expected more trouble than that, but she wasn't going to complain either. When his footsteps had died on the stairs, she turned back to the matter at hand.

"As for you," the master turned to Altair. "There is another whose life you must take."

Sandy shifted her weight and tried to vanish into the stones, it seemed like she had been right and Altair had been summoned because there was someone else that needed to die. She almost tried to will herself into going deaf at that moment, not really wanting to hear who and where. Why was she up here? Was it because she was just a clingy travel companion?

"Travel to Akka," the master began. The words caused Sandy's head to whip up in surprise. "Your target is a man named Garnier de Naplouse, the keeper of the Bureau will have more information for you."

"It will be done," Altair replied.

"There is the matter of you taking our guest with you." The master added.

"She has proven her worth in gathering unusual information that nevertheless proves valuable," Altair replied. "I expect her to continue performing in that capacity."

Sandy almost beamed with a sort of self-satisfaction at his words. That was the first time that she had been all but called useful by Altair in front of someone else! The master glanced at her and Sandy tried to wipe the smirk off her face and she all but succeeded, even if she couldn't get rid of the small grin.

"Akka is not Damascus, Altair. Keeping her safe will not be as easy with all those crusaders."

Sandy opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it in the end and remained quiet. The gesture was not missed however and the master's eyes turned towards her, causing her to some degree of discomfort. She cleared her throat and decided to put up a brave air, "I can take care of myself, sir. I do not plan to expose myself to undue danger. Further we have an agreement in place that on the day of the assassination, I am confined to the Bureau. I do not presume to go against such sensible measures."

"Very well then," the master stepped around his table again and placed his hand on the back of his chair. "You two are dismissed."

Sandy bowed as Antonio had, while Altair merely nodded his head and she followed him closely down the steps, and wasn't until she was at their base that she felt calm enough to let out the air she didn't realize she had been holding in her lungs. She glanced up at Altair and noticed a peculiar look on his features, it seemed like he was mulling over something or other, but she knew better than to ask what it was. She touched his arm instead, jarring him out of his thoughts and back to earth. "When do we depart?"

"Tomorrow morning," Altair replied.

"I was wondering though, is Akka really as dangerous as it is seems?"

"The city is overrun by Crusaders; it is the staging ground for their designs on the Holy Land. Richard's army is probably eager to go onward. Emboldened by their conquest they will be in a mood to kill anyone who stands in their way. Then there are the Hospitallers, the Templars, and the Teutonic knights. The city is like a nest of bees, bristling with eager men who want the blood of anyone who is not like them."

"Maybe I should stay behind then," she murmured.

"After what you told the master you have no choice but to go. Staying behind is a coward's decision."

"You're right, I guess- I should have kept my mouth shut."

"Go eat, we will talk later," Altair announced.

Sandy smiled, nodded her head and they parted for the time being, with Sandy off to the kitchen to look for something to eat.

After having her breakfast, Sandy remembered the bracers she had wanted to order from the leatherworks of Masyaf. Finding the craftsmen in the basement of the fort took a while, because she didn't want to bother Antonio or Altair with leading her to the place, but after wandering down there for half an hour she found her way by the unmistakable smell of leather wafting from one of the chambers.

The money she had gotten from the knights had proven to be French deniers, nearly useless in Masyaf, but she was told that it would be good enough in places where foreign merchants gathered, in other words the story would differ in Akka. Still the artisan had taken one good look at her arms and declared that he had some scraps of leather that would work to make her a little something simple. He also took measurements of her knives to make sure that the slots he would put into the bracers would fit the weapons snugly enough, overall Sandy left quite satisfied.

After dinner she joined Antonio in a walk down to the stables to check on Rayo. She kept her mouth shut about the trip to Akka, hinting that Altair and she were leaving on another of his assignments, but leaving the exact location hanging. Let Antonio think that it was either Damascus or Jerusalem.

When they returned to the fortress, it was the first time Sandy began to notice something off. Training for the day was done when the sun had set, but some of the children were still out, enjoying some free time after a day's hard work. As she passed a bunch of the mid-level trainees, she noted how they eyed her with a certain dubious expression, but she ignored them in favor of her present company and the discussion they were having over the proper trick of handling a horse. Antonio seemed keen on teaching her the rest of what Altair's brief tutorial had left out.

After Antonio had left her, she went to get her things and return to the quarters, the operation required some stealth as not to be seen carrying that stuff into Altair's quarters, she was still keen on people not knowing where she normally lodged. After that she took her usual bath and finally turned in to sleep long after the sun had set, when the fortress had finally calmed down and turned silent.

The next morning she woke up a little late, not at all surprised that Altair was gone, probably getting ready for the departure. She swiftly got her own things in order, grabbed her things and put on her freshly laundered and dry cloak.

She found Altair in the great hall, enjoying breakfast that she had been only ten minutes late for, a pardonable offense, even if it made her somewhat annoyed that he had not woken her up for it.

"Were you trying to leave me behind?" she asked, as she took the first bite of breakfast.

"I'm not your keeper," Altair replied.

"No, you're just my _friend_." Sandy replied meaningfully.

"Next time I'll wake you up when I do."

Sandy blanched, she knew when that would be, like a rooster he was up with the first crack of dawn. He was decidedly a morning person, maybe not as chipper as the real thing, but it took him little to no effort to get going in the morning. She was never that way, flopping around the bed was always a horrible habit of hers. She slept until she was right and ready to get up, and getting her out of bed before that had been a fight all throughout her school years. She only got up before that if she wanted to get up then for some reason.

"Finish eating, the horses should be ready for us by now," he noted.

"Eager are we?" she mused.

"Did you tell Antonio?"

"No. One time was enough for me. If he knew where we're going; I think he'd chain me to some pillar or something."

Altair grinned in response and the two ate their breakfast in relative silence. Sandy eyed the novices all throughout; Faisal was among them, with a group of ten or twelve others who were his age or slightly younger. He was telling them a story that she couldn't quite hear, but it was an avid tale judging by the way he gesticulated with his hands and the awed looks on the faces of the others.

After breakfast the two of them left for the stables, got their horses and departed, surprisingly without Sandy getting even one gleam of Antonio. It left her wondering what was bothering him this time, he seemed to get those moods at times, but like the first time she hoped he'd get over it with time. By the time they got back in five or six days, he'd be right and happy, she hoped.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Penny: A little bit of time conflict again. Sandy of course means the modern penny, a phrase of speech. But for Antonio the mention of a penny brings to mind the silver coinage at the time, it was very rare, and very expensive. Roughly speaking a single day's wage for someone of a skilled trade or a knight.

Rhetoric: The ancient 'art' of using language to persuade, having been studied by Classical Greeks and Romans, and would still be studied for hundreds of years. Typically a part of medieval university curriculum.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Latin phrase loosely meaning 'my most grievous fault'. It comes from a traditional prayer in Catholic Mass known as _Confiteor_ ('I confess').

**Director's Notes:**

I like how this chapter turned out, I tried to go for a very suspended sort of drama that doesn't feel like a soap opera, but feels more like a genuine misunderstanding between people.

Yikes. Saturday kind of snuck up on me, putting me a little behind schedule in many ways. I had a quiz on Monday (10%), and to submit an essay for Wednesday, 15% of final mark, a doozy week. So this is why the chapter is horribly late. I did my best, and I hope you really enjoyed it. Thanks for all the reviews, and the people who added me to their fav lists/story alerts, you rock.

I also wanted to thank the whole bunch of people who helped shatter the old 'views per day' record for a publish day. Last Saturday, 274 hits with 86 unique visits. That shattered the old record from chapter 10 by something like… 100 hits and 20 unique visitors! That's not counting the trickle for the rest of the week. Wow, I didn't know CT would become that popular. I'm awed and humbled.


	19. Clear and present danger, part I

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XIX:**__ Clear and present danger, part I_

Sandy had never seen the true effects of genuine war before, and some part of her wished she didn't have to see it now. The two of them had ridden at a leisurely pace as to not attract undue attention, but as they once again entered the ancient region of Galilee and turned southwest toward Akka, she quickly began to notice how the signs of combat just materialized out of the rocks.

The terrain was sloping towards the sea and by nightfall of the second day they sighted the city in the distance. They made camp among the elevated rocks of the central highlands of Galilee, a spot where they would be difficult to find in the night as only locals knew the rocks well enough. Their languid pace put them behind schedule, they should've been at the gates of Akka hours ago, but Sandy wasn't complaining.

She found herself standing on a large rock, looking out towards the sea, watching the sun set over the injured hulk that was the city. It was there that Altair joined her after taking care of the horses.

"Just look at all that," she stated, sweeping her hand across the lands below. What had once been somewhat lush farmland was now scorched black in areas, the crusaders had clearly raided and pillaged at will. Even from the distance she could see Akka was a broken crag, its walls shattered and useless. A miasma of gloom, desolation, and darkness hung over the city, and it had nothing with the settling night. "Barbarous," she breathed.

"Such is the face of war," Altair noted.

Sandy shook her head, "You probably can't imagine it, but I have never seen something like this before. I read of wars, and my time had some gruesome ones, but I have never seen one-"

"Then perhaps you shouldn't have come," Altair noted.

"No, this really is something. It really slams it home- I- I don't even have words for it."

"You speak of wars in your time-"

Sandy sighed, turning to look at him. "You know I can't talk about it." She didn't want to think about it, let alone speak of some of the atrocities humanity would continue to commit in the next eight hundred years. Time be damned, that kind of knowledge was simply too depressing. "I'm wondering if faith is really worth all this," she murmured. "So many suffer, so many die-"

Altair remained silent as they stood on the rock, watching Akka until the sun set fully and the city vanished in the haze of night. The breeze blowing through the crags played with their clothing and caused the rocks to whisper with each gust.

"Now this will be a dumb question, but how do you plan to get us in a city full of crusaders?" Sandy asked, glancing up at her companion.

"You'll see," he replied calmly.

"There better not be any wall scaling, sewer tunnel trotting, or swimming."

Altair's expression changed three times and she saw it. At the mention of wall climbing he grinned and Sandy decided that at some point he had probably tried it. When she spoke of sewer tunnels he looked like had wanted to laugh, but the thought of swimming completely chased away the mirth.

"Oh hell no! Don't tell me-"

"There will be no swimming involved," Altair cut in before she could complete the mental nightmare fuel of having to swim into Akka's port like some sort of grease-painted, buzz cut, rifle-toting Marine infiltrating hostile territory from some offshore landing craft.

Sandy knew how to swim in a calm swimming pool, but swimming in the Mediterranean was only an option if she was two feet away from shore, on a beach, enjoying herself, not infiltrating a heavily guarded city.

"Our only option then is perhaps to play the part of two scholars on the pilgrimage to the Holy Land."

"Yes and your arsenal is just there for self-defense." Sandy replied sarcasm dripping off her voice. "We'd have to find the gate currently guarded by the city idiots to make that work."

"One city can have many idiots."

Sandy paused, wondering what it was that he meant with those words, "You actually did it before?" she asked in shock.

"A number of times," Altair admitted.

"Damn. Still, I don't think I look scholarly enough to pass."

"Keep your hood up, your hands clasped, and if anyone asks, you're a servant and apprentice."

"Dandy, just dandy. I suppose you have me pull the horses along too."

"It's the servant's duty," he replied before turning around and walking towards the sheltering outcrop of rock on which they made bed for the evening.

"Well if it'll get us inside," Sandy remarked, sounding dubious of the whole proposition. Just how dumb would the gate guards have to be to buy that kind of pathetic excuse? To her one look at Altair and she had been on edge, did her sense of danger differ from theirs that much?

She imagined that after Akka's fall, the city's regular garrison would have been replaced by men from Richard's army. Would they be that dumb to not know a real scholar from a fake one? By what she knew of the Crusades, a lot of the men who joined them were common people who weren't educated, most couldn't even read or write. Emboldened by promises of glory and indulgences for sins they did not commit, though the church said they did, they took the cross to fight for what they saw as land that belonged to them. Maybe it made sense that many would be ignorant enough to not know a real scholar from a fake one. Gate guards probably weren't the smartest bunch anyways; no smart soldier would be content with standing in one spot all day in the sweltering heat of Israeli summer.

She followed Altair to the outcrop of rock where she got the fire going for both of them, they had their dinner and then with the flames stocked with some fresh wood they turned in for the night, but Sandy found it difficult to sleep with the wind whistling through the rocks as it did. The gusts sounded as the moaning and whispering of spirits, it was easily the most disconcerting experience she ever had.

In the morning they woke and had the remainder of the traveling rations as a form of breakfast before setting out on the road to the gates of Akka. When they left the sheltering crags of the central highlands and drew closer to the city, Sandy found herself seeing the details of what caused the giant rips in the walls that were visible from the high rocks.

The lands surrounding the city were scattered with the charred and burned remains of farmhouses and various other things that she could not recognize. All the wood in the walls of the houses was gone, leaving behind only stone, charred half walls and alien-looking smoke-stacks rising into the air like lonely sentinels. Other houses had outright collapsed, the stone walls giving way under the pressure of heat. Here and there some wood remained from the roof beams, thought it looked like it had been turned to charcoal. The mess inside the houses hinted that they had been thoroughly ransacked before they had been set ablaze and Sandy wondered if the people had died before or after.

Fire was a gruesome way to die; it would have been merciful if the knights had killed the people with a single stroke of their swords. Being the daughter a fireman she had heard stories of what happened to people in fires. In most cases, it wasn't the heat or the fire itself that killed, but the smoke. Death by smoke inhalation was a slow and torturous way to die, easily one of the worst. As the toxic chemicals in the smoke damaged the lungs the victim would lost the ability to get in oxygen to their blood, it would be like drowning out of water.

She had to pull her mind forcibly away from the gruesome images that her imagination was bent on conjuring up in front of her eyes. She turned to inspect the scenery of the country around her, noting the scars of battle left there. Some of the ruined fields were sown with the bodies of the dead; the mounds of relatively fresh graves were unmistakable. Animals lay dead where they fell; she could see the corpses of horses, donkeys, goats, and sheep. It looked like no one had wanted to touch them, so they were left to rot where they fell. The nauseating smell of decay hung around the scene like a miasma, the sulfur and ammonia smells of rotting flesh mixing with the salt carried on the sea breeze, making her nose itch until she was forced to cover her face with the sleeve of her cloak.

As they drew closer to the city, destruction of another kind emerged. Scattered around were the remains of siege engines destroyed in combat, great catapults and at least one trebuchet, it was easy to tell it apart because it had a large tread wheel. Some areas had ditches that looked like hastily dug, but unused mass graves. In places there were piles of broken weapons and armor, gathered for repair or possible re-forging at some unknown time. The armor showed the horrible ways in which the soldiers died. Each rend and each broken helmet reminded her that at one point someone had been wearing it, and that someone was probably dead seeing how badly their armor had been breached.

"This is horrible," she noted to Altair as they drew ever closer to the city.

"It would have been worse just after the siege, the effort to clean it up has begun."

"With no great hurry," Sandy noted.

"If this bothers you that much, you should have stayed in Masyaf, perhaps Antonio had been right."

"Hey! I can handle this just fine, thank you very much," Sandy protested. The last thing she needed was for Altair to think that she was some wimp who couldn't handle a little of the horrors of war.

She had seen documentaries on the World Wars and Vietnam, and though those had not been as mind-blowing and graphical as what she was seeing now, somewhere in the back of her mind she could have pictured the horrors that were not shown. She wished the horrors had been shown; maybe then people would've been less inclined to wage wars if they saw how horrible they really were, but censorship and over sheltering of the weak minded ignoramuses was a policy of the twenty-first century. She was oddly proud of being able to say that she could stomach the sight before her.

They finally stopped some distance from the gates and dismounted, Sandy eyed the gates warily; the guards standing outside were of the crusader variety alright. Clad in the red and white livery of King Richard's army, their chests blazoned with lions, hands resting on their swords as if they expected a call to battle at any moment. Outside the gate there were gatherings of supply carts and merchants coming in to the port, the Mediterranean glittered in the distance brightly as ever.

"We may not have to play the scholars, with so many merchants abound I might pass for a bodyguard."

"And me?"

"Still my servant," he replied casually.

"Well _milord_, allow me to take your horse," Sandy grinned, taking Talimar's reins from his hands. He proceeded ahead of them to the gates with Sandy pulling along both horses and trying to keep an eye out for any trouble, something told her to be cautious in this environment. It was as if the tension of the long siege had yet to dissipate, and she could feel it hovering oppressively on the air.

They drew closer to the gates, joining a group of merchants that had just talked their way through the gates by giving one of the guards a small satchel of money. Altair walked right behind their cart, and Sandy stuck behind him, pulling along the two horses. The cart moved slowly and as they passed the outside perimeter of the gate, she began to feel slightly anxious. In Sandy's mind, any second now the guards would notice that they had not been behind the merchants the entire time, and they would be stopped and probably in trouble. No alarm came and as they crossed the inner gate and emerged into the sunlight again Sandy relaxed a little.

Altair followed the cart a bit longer, getting out of sight from the guards before they went their own way. The two merchants leading the cart and conversing between themselves had not even noticed their presence there, the creaking of the cart's wheels utterly blocked out the sound of Talimar and Nyx's metal-shod hooves.

The streets of Akka were busy, teeming with life, but the city itself was horribly scarred by the siege. Sandy could see that some of the buildings closest to the walls had become victims to projectiles overshooting the walls. Since she had seen the remains of a trebuchet out there, she could almost guess which of the engines had done this sort of damage, the average catapult probably couldn't hurl things this far. More of Richard's men were patrolling the streets, keeping an eye on the many people there. She could see the scorn in their gazes as they watched the few locals who had not fled the city after its fall.

The air of gloom that had been oppressive from a distance was very much a cloud of depression that hung over the city once you were past its gates. She followed Altair silently as he led them to the stables. It took a while to find one that just had a vacancy, the first two they visited were filled with the beasts of many merchants, it seemed like even in the sorry state that the city was in, and it was still the hub of trade. Once Nyx and Talimar were finally stabled, they made their way to the Bureau.

Sandy still hated the usual door way, her whole frame would still jar with the impact of jumping down the hole in the lattice roof, but at least she had learned to stick the landing without twisting her ankles. Altair was unaffected and she followed behind him still a little wobbly from the landing, but the pain was dulling.

As soon as Altair had set both feet inside the bureau, the keeper looked up and Sandy had to step out from behind Altair, as his size compared to hers probably made her otherwise invisible.

"Ah, there you two are. A little late. No?" he asked.

"Doesn't matter," Altair replied coolly.

"Of course, of course," the rafiq replied, thought to Sandy he sounded a little smug. "You there, girl, leave-"

"She stays," Altair interjected.

The rafiq's eyebrows rose in surprise as he turned to Altair. "So it is true, she is your assistant?" he asked calmly.

"I do not need assistance, but she has a habit of picking up odd bits of useful information that the other informants miss, they could stand to learn from her in thoroughness."

Sandy tried not to feel bothered that the two were talking about her as if she wasn't in the room, but something told her that this rafiq was different from the other two she knew. He was older for one, so maybe he was a little more traditional, she decided to keep quiet, after all, she could still wring Altair's ears about this one at some later point.

"Fine, she stays," the rafiq conceded finally.

"So what can you tell me about Garnier de Naplouse?"

"He's the Grand Master of the Knights Hospital, and keeps to his quarters in their district. Beyond that, I cannot say, you _two_ will have to investigate on your own."

Sandy tried not to look like she was bothered, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller? Seemed to her like an awful big jump in target profile, to go from a treacherous merchant to a man who commanded a whole order of knights. She glanced at Altair and wondered how he would manage to pull off this one. In her mind she could see this man surrounded by his knights, how did one get close to such a target and then escape without being noticed, or killed?

"I suggest you begin your search where those of their order gather. There are three places I know of, the public gardens north of here, an abandoned market northwest, and by Maria of Johesephet's Church to the west."

"Your information will be put to good use," Altair replied.

"See that it is."

Altair turned to the kitchens, and Sandy followed, feeling the rafiq's gaze on her back the whole way. In the kitchen they found some food which was little better than their traveling rations, but Sandy figured this was hardly Damascus and Jerusalem, this was a city that had been under siege only a little while ago.

"I don't like it," she muttered.

"Not everyone knows your capabilities. Furthermore, it's been a good ten years since we had a woman for an informant, and then she did not match your… expertise," Altair commented as he got himself his rations and moved to sit down so he could have his meal.

Sandy followed suit, but she couldn't get over the treatment she had just gotten. The sexist comments were something she was already used to, and something she stopped being bothered by, but this had been the first time she had been asked to leave. "Still, you'd think that since I have this cloak, it means I'm good at something, right? I have a feeling I'll hang myself of boredom here when you're off killing Garnier. At least in Damascus I had-"

"It's unusual for you to complain," Altair remarked.

Sandy heaved a sight when she realized that he was right, she was acting unusually bitchy at that moment. "I'm sorry. I'll just have to bear it, right? I must be tired from the road, and- thanks for sticking up for me. Really." Sandy looked up, offering her companion an apologetic smile.

"Sticking up?" he asked.

"You know- that whole 'she stays' business. Thanks."

"Just stating fact," Altair replied.

"And I'm just thanking you for it, I can, can't I?" she asked.

"Sit down and eat," he ordered.

"Yes, _milord_!" Sandy drawled as she sat down across the table from him.

"Things will be a little different from the investigation in Damascus, more dangerous for you."

"I noticed along the way. The place is crawling with Richard's men."

"You do not have to worry about them unless you disturb the peace in any overt way. It is those of the orders that will be the most danger. Templars in particular, it would seem that Robert de Sable had decided to order his men to pursue assassins on sight."

Sandy nodded mutely, in her mind she thought she would know those of the orders, wouldn't she? They'd have crosses blazoned on their clothing, it didn't matter what kind, as long as it was there somehow, right? "Same gate rule?" she asked.

"Not directly. First find a way to the roofs and hide out of sight. When you're sure you don't have a tail, make your way to the gates, stick to the roofs as much as you can, there is usually a path that does not involve vaulting from roof to roof."

Sandy nodded and picked up a bread bun on which she began to chew slowly. "Maybe its better I remain here, I'll just slow you down."

"You're coming," Altair replied in a distinctly commanding tone that made Sandy jump.

"Alright," Sandy murmured. In her mind she was thinking of other things entirely. Right at that moment, her mind fixated on something obvious that she had overlooked. Namely the sleeping arrangements for that night, somehow she didn't feel comfortable sleeping that close to Altair knowing that the rafiq did not approve of her. Malik and the rafiq of Damascus had been amused by the sight, but this one seemed like he would see her as the worst sort of harlot if he caught her even close to Altair while asleep.

The scary part was that she almost didn't care; she wanted to stick up a proverbial middle finger and do it anyways. In a twisted sort of way she wanted to be bad to the last. She knew there was nothing indecent happening, Altair knew there was nothing indecent there- at least she hoped- so screw everyone else, right? She glanced up at Altair and realized that he had been watching her, which combined with her thoughts a second before made her face heat up suddenly and she looked away. When she glanced back at him some half a minute later, she noticed that he was still watching her, with almost what she thought was concern in his eyes, but it was gone so fast she couldn't be sure.

"Is there something wrong?" she asked, almost in a squeak.

"You're not chattering anymore," he replied flippantly.

"There's nothing to chatter about, honestly… after seeing what I saw outside the walls today. I just can't bring myself to feel happy. Then I get that _warm_ _and fuzzy_ welcome, and I'm practically beaming here." Sandy muttered sarcastically. "I should have stayed at Masyaf."

Altair hummed as if in assent, but the tone of his hum was different, she couldn't put her finger on it, but it seemed like her words had displeased him for some reason. She couldn't figure out why he would be displeased, so she shrugged her shoulders and resumed eating. Absentmindedly she reached for the last piece of cheese on the table and stopped when her fingers brushed Altair's. Her eyes flashed instantly to him, they had both reached for the cheese at the same time. She glanced at the cheese and it was like he had been waiting for the distraction to bat her hand away with his as grab the cheese before she could react.

"Hey!" she protested.

"Too slow." He replied, grinning roguishly. Sandy forgot her gloomy thoughts in favor of glaring at her arrogant dinner-companion, deciding then and there that the no good cheese-napper would pay. She didn't know how she would make Altair pay for the capital crime of cheese-napping, but she'd figure something out. Looking up at him she found him grinning at her.

With the cheese gone, the meal didn't last long. Soon they were out on the streets again. Normally they were in the bureau at night fall, meaning it was dinner and straight to bed, but this time their delay put them at the Bureau just past noon, so Altair decided to take a couple hours to scout the surroundings preliminarily. They saw a number of men with crosses on their robes, but all of them seemed to be monks and scholars. The few knights they had seen were easily avoided by ducking into the shadows, or pretending to be fixated on a merchant's stall. Altair seemed in no hurry, and Sandy wasn't surprised that they got nothing in the way of information, other than the good scope of the city's climate.

To her it seemed like Akka was ready to boil, the tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. There was a great sense of expectation there, as if the whole town was preparing for something. She knew what it would be, the eventual march onward to Arsuf and the battle there. Being in the city when all of that was going on made her tense, as if expecting trouble at any given moment. Subsequently by the time they got back to the bureau she was as tense as Richard's men, as if by osmosis.

When they got back to the Bureau, they were mostly empty handed save for a few keen observations, dinner was awkward and silent and Sandy let her thoughts wander freely. Sleeping arrangement came to her almost as if by epiphany, she decided to sleep with her back to Altair, and her cloak for a blanket. The linen should trap some body heat underneath it and provide for a bit of the warmth. She almost felt smug at the simplicity of the solution to that woe, and wondered why it hadn't occurred to her sooner.

She was so proud of her solution that she put it to practical application as soon as she possibly could, only wishing Altair a quick good night to show him that it was nothing personal.

~*~*~*~

Altair watched as Sandy settled for the night, facing the wall, and using the cloak as her blanket. Before he could ask her what was on her mind with that one, he heard the rafiq's footsteps and it occurred to him.

"She does not use the guest quarters?" the man asked.

"She sleeps as she pleases," Altair replied calmly as he set down his belt, in the process of getting ready for bed himself. It was hard to miss how the woman's shoulders tensed under the cloak; she was clearly still awake and merely acting asleep.

"Very well then," the rafiq stepped back into the house.

Altair sat down on the carpet and glanced at the woman, noting that she had relaxed instantly as soon as the man had been gone. He placed a hand on her shoulder and contemplated telling her that she was being ridiculous in her pursuits of avoiding embarrassment, but then he decided that maybe it was a good thing if she did try to pull away. "Get all the sleep you need, we'll be leaving first thing in the morning." He stated, knowing that she could hear him.

~*~*~*~

Sandy slept fitfully, but eventually the dreams came. She found herself wandering across the ruined expanse of the battlefield beyond Akka's gates. In the dream-moonlight, everything on the field that was stone glowed iridescently and the ground felt ready to open up and swallow her whole, its softness was that of a carpet. There was no sound, not even the wind seemed to blow among the hallowed ruined buildings. She did not know what was guiding her to wander the field, but she felt like she had to find something.

Sandy passed by one of the buildings and stopped, seeing a graveyard past its shattered back wall. She passed through the house and under its broken arched doorway, past the ruined walls, and emerged from the toppled back wall. Beyond the house there was a ditch, one of the many she had seen, but the pull to walk towards the graveyard was so strong that she didn't even think twice about jumping over it.

The graveyard was much as the ones she had seen, impromptu burials with relatively shallow undecorated graves, but this one was different, there was a single grave in the midst of them all, set on which was a wooden cross. Seated on top of the cross was a creature, at a distance it looked like a raven, but as Sandy found herself drawing closer, she realized it wasn't. The bird turned its head, leveling a pair of glowing golden eyes on her. Sandy realized that it was a raven-black eagle, a frightful bird that looked like it was looking right into her soul. It sat with all the grace of a king upon the cross, with one of the gaps in the shattered walls of Akka behind it, framing it in the moonlight.

Something hissed and Sandy jumped back in surprise, at the base of the cross there was a black adder, it coiled its body twice around the bottom arm of the cross, raising its head to glare at her, hissing all the while. The only sound around her was the guttural hiss that did not sound all that snake-like to her ears.

Sandy awoke with a start. She felt a warm hand on her shoulder and the air around her was still cool. Instantly she knew that it was morning even before she opened her eyes.

"Good morning, Altair." She noted.

"Were you dreaming?" he asked.

"what- yes." Sandy sat up, surprised that he had noticed it.

"You were tense and shaking a little."

Sandy shook her head and smiled at Altair fondly, "I was just- don't mind me. I saw the battlefield out there, and-"

"We'll talk later, get ready." Altair rose to his feet and Sandy noted that he was nearly completely armed; only the sheath of his sword needed attachment to his belt. "Seeing that we're not getting cooked breakfast- that bundle contains your share. You can eat on the walk."

"Without the cheese, right?" Sandy asked.

Altair turned to glare down at her, but the expression softened suddenly and a grin on his face was decidedly not angry.

Sandy grabbed her shoes and slipped them on, as she pulled on the first sneaker, she looked up at him and smiled teasingly, "There's no shame in being a cheese-loving soul."

Barely fifteen minutes later and they were on the streets. Sandy cradled a cloth-wrapped bundle of food in her hands, and eating her bread in peace. Altair walked close by, but she could tell that he was watching the streets. It took her half an hour to finish the food, she watched her footing closely because the street was so uneven, and she did not want to trip and fall flat on her face in the middle of Akka. She folded up the cloth and stuck it into her pocket.

"What were you going to say about that dream?" Altair asked as if he was perfectly aware that she had finished her food and was ready to talk.

"Well I saw the remains of the siege, the graves, the ruins, the ditches, that didn't bother me much. It was what else that I saw. There was an eagle and an adder- Some say that dreams mean things, like warning and things- I can't make heads or tails of this one. I don't know if I want to believe in that stuff. It's that bird… it was black as a raven, but it was an eagle. I remember the hooked beak, and the talons, ravens have neither- It was the eeriest thing too, it had these bright golden eyes and it was sitting on a cross, staring at me."

"It only means what you want it to mean," Altair noted.

Sandy laughed, "Yea, you're probably right. It's probably just a total case of a head trip after seeing that hell out there. The snake and the bird, they probably mean something insignificant anyways." She placed her hand on his elbow.

To her surprise he gave her hand a pat in the same gesture as he slid it off his arm. She chuckled fondly and fell in step with him. "Where do we begin seeking?"

"How about the gardens?" Altair suggested.

"Sounds as good as any place."

They passed a group of Richard's men who spared them strange looks, but she looked away and casually raised up her hood, effectively completing the illusion that she was just a very young man and not in fact a woman.

Altair knew where the garden was, and she followed him without much argument. The gardens were little more than a square with a mix of various desert-hardy plants; some of them were sickly looking.

Sandy watched as Altair got to work, his eyes scanning the crowd gathered in the gardens, she followed his line of sight, trying to see what he saw, what he discounted. Maybe it was pointless, but idly she wanted to learn to apply whatever meager CSI-learned skills she had for use. Altair had showed a vote of confidence in her, she wanted to come through. So there she was, trying to learn what probably took years to develop, in ten minutes, without instruction, by osmosis. She was up a creek without a paddle.

"There," Altair stated.

Sandy almost jumped and turned to catch where he was looking. She could see two men standing on the edge of the gardens, Altair moved slowly and Sandy followed, sticking to his shadow. He motioned to the bench and Sandy sat down, Altair sat down next to her and she could tell what was going to happen now.

"Would it be too much to ask you're to tell me what you overhear? I don't have your superman hearing."

Altair's fingers brushed her knee and Sandy took it as a sign to be quiet. She turned back to the two men and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm her body and maybe make her ears a little bit sharper. As she focused on the various sounds, trying to isolate the ones voices of the men she began to hear select words.

"- He's been … hospital, I would … the …"

Sandy frowned; her ears refused to pick up what she wanted to hear and it began to frustrate her. She wanted to hear as well as Altair could, but it seemed like there was something in what she did hear. What was it that she had learned in history class? The mention of the hospital made sense, the Knights Hospitaller were called that because they were connected to hospitals, right? It would make sense that their Grand Master would be at a hospital.

"Garnier can be found-"

"The hospital somewhere in the city, right?" Sandy asked.

"This district actually."

"I see, I only heard a couple words."

Altair got to his feet and Sandy followed him. "Sometimes a couple words is more than enough." He added as he began to walk.

"You still heard more than me, I bet."

"He keeps to the quarters and the hospital, my options are limited. Within the hospital, the patients would not provide him any help, and there will be fewer guards."

"Panic," Sandy noted. "I would be cautious about that. Frightened people behave remarkably like herd animals on the run."

"Nothing I haven't dealt with before." Altair noted as they turned a corner.

Sandy opened her mouth to speak when Altair put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. Sandy felt the urgency in his grip and turned her head to look at what had made Altair react like that.

Coming down the street was a large group of Templars, ten in total, all heavily armed and armored. In the lead was a man who could only be described as a giant, if Altair's six foot was something, this one seemed to be six foot four at least. Sandy was instantly alarmed, she could tell he was high ranked by appearance alone. eight of the other nine Templars walked two steps behind him, and the last walked only half a step behind him to his right.

"What's wrong?" Sandy whispered.

"Do not speak. Stick close, and follow my lead." Altair replied. His hand left her shoulders and he pressed to the wall, Sandy followed him. He moved slowly foreword, keeping to the shadows, and Sandy could tell where he was steering for, the closest alley.

She followed Altair's example in keeping her head down and her frame relaxed, despite the fact that she felt nothing less than relaxed. Her hands clasped into fists, but the long sleeves of her cloak concealed the gesture.

"Stop right there, Assassins."

The voice was like a gunshot, and Sandy felt her whole body freeze. The tone seemed almost haughty and smug at the same time and Sandy did not like it one little bit. She glanced up and discovered that they had somehow become mostly surrounded. Altair was already on guard, and suddenly she became terrified as she looked from Templar to Templar.

To control her sudden feeling of anxiety she dug her nails into her palms and tried to breathe deeply and evenly through her nose as Altair stepped away from the wall. Sandy had no choice but to turn and face the man who had spoken.

"What do you want, Robert?" Altair demanded.

* * *

**The Tidbits Corner:**

Trebuchet: This siege engine is basically a giant slingshot capable of hurling heavier things further and with more power than any catapult, but they are utterly immovable when assembled.

**Director's Notes:**

This chapter required a little bit of forethought, but I liked how it ended up being. I tried to go a little graphical on that description around the city. Yes, I know it is a very evil sort of cliff hanger, and you probably did not see it coming since nothing close like that happened in the game. Well, Surprise!


	20. Clear and present danger, part II

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**

* * *

Chapter XX:**__ Clear and present danger, part II_

The question hung in the air, but for Sandy only one word of it registered as interesting. What name had Altair mentioned in relation to the Grand Master of the Templars? Her eyes widened as she connected the dots and her eyes whipped over to Altair. The suddenness of the gesture made two of the Templars react, putting their hands on their swords.

Sandy stepped back, turning her eyes to look at the giant man in the middle of the formation of Templars. Her eyes drifted up slowly, cautious and wary of what she might see. It was as if he had been watching her, their gazes locked for all of a split of a second and Sandy's adrenaline levels went off the scale. It was like time slowed down, and suddenly there was a moment of lucidity that utterly stopped her cold. The color of his eyes was wrong, but the gaze was unmistakably the same as that of the black eagle in her dream. In an inexplicable way, she knew that her dream had somehow been a warning, too abstract and incoherent at the time, but in hindsight it meant something now. She tore her gaze away from him and turned to the other men.

"You assassins are employing women now?" Robert asked, sounding even more smug and amused than he had been a moment before.

"That is none of your business," Altair replied.

Sandy's eyes caught the movement of the one Templar that had been trailing a step behind the Grand Master on the street. When Robert had spoken of her to be a woman, that Templar turned to look at him, but caught himself and turned to Sandy.

She noticed something peculiar; this one was wearing a helmet of the masked variety, different from the bucket-like great helmets that the other Templars carried. In his hands he carried a great helmet that undoubtedly belonged to Robert. The green eyes that Sandy could see from the eyeholes were trained on her, piercing and curious?

"It is my business. Where one of you jackals shows up, someone dies, it isn't a coincidence."

Sandy listened to the conversation only with one ear; her eyes remained on the peculiar odd Templar that drew her attention. This one was just the odd one out, not burly enough, and not tall enough to be a man. There was a logical explanation, a younger male that hadn't matured yet, and she would've settled for that explanation but her mind was suddenly in a state of perfect clarity and her instinct refused to accept the convenient explanation. Beyond the convenience there was only one other explanation, a woman underneath all that armor, carrying a sword, and serving as the Grand Master's servant-page? What the hell is a woman doing among the Templars?

"I do my job, you do yours," Altair replied calmly.

The sound of Altair's voice made Sandy's gaze flick to the giant, and she saw Robert de Sable actually grin. Then his eyes flicked to her again, she tried to look away, but it was like his presence compelled her. The gaze was broken only when he was talking to Altair again.

"Tell me assassin, why shouldn't I have you killed you where you stand?"

"You know full well I'd kill all nine of your men in under a minute- maybe less," Altair replied.

Sandy glanced at Altair and wondered if she was somehow in his equation under the 'maybe less' clause. He was out of his mind if he thought she'd do something other than run if a fight broke out. This wasn't an instance when fighting was a good idea, or indeed an option. To her it seemed like an awfully stupid idea, even if he could kill the nine goons, she didn't want to see how brutally skilled the Grand Master of the Templars would be. It was then she noted some of Richard's men, three of them had stopped to watch the scene.

Sandy scanned the crowd again, noting every man and she was surprised to see two archers on the rooftop across the street also watching as if the happenings as if this was some grand theatrical event. She stepped a few inches closer to Altair and placed her fingers on the back of his arm, "Fifteen men; two archers. Bad odds," she whispered. Altair nodded his head ever so slightly and she removed her hand.

"It seems like your companion thinks differently," Robert noted.

Sandy would've snapped something back if she wanted to snap something at someone that dangerous. Instead she placed her hands on her hips and glared. The giant had the audacity to look like he was amused at her glare, but before she could even think of working up the nerve to say something snappy; she felt Altair's hand on her shoulder and looked at him.

"When I say, run," he whispered, jerking his head ever so slightly to the right.

Sandy understood the message and nodded her head, steeling her nerves as she knew she had to be quick, and she had to keep moving until she was sure to be out of archer range. The tactical retreat would be dangerous, but staying where they were was plain stupid.

Suddenly there were swords drawn, two of the Templars did not like the quiet conferences, but Robert raised his hand, waving them off. Altair glanced at Robert, Sandy noted a grin on his face, and suddenly he raised his hand. Sandy braced her nerves and when his hand flicked she was ready and off like a gunshot with Altair right behind her.

He overtook her effortlessly and shot past her, Sandy ran flat out, using his slipstream. The Templars moved to intercept but before they could put on their helmets, one was dead by Altair's hidden blade, his throat sliced open on the run. As the man collapsed it gave them both just enough time to slip by and then the first arrow whizzed by, bouncing off the stones as the shouting of the people began. Still, Sandy could hear the cluttering footsteps of the Templars behind them and that forced her to push herself harder and catch up with Altair.

As they ran into a small intersection of streets, he turned left sharply on his feet, but Sandy grinned and grabbed one of the poles supporting a merchant stall at the corner, using it as a pivot so that the centripetal force of her run worked like slingshot around the corner, giving her more speed. The merchant shouted something as the pole gave way and the awning collapsed, Sandy was beyond caring.

"How long?" Sandy shouted.

"Don't talk, run." Altair shouted back.

Ahead of them the crowd grew thick and Altair veered slightly left. Sandy followed but she couldn't help but slow down, what the hell was going on? Her eyes widened when Altair seemingly vaulted right through a stall, using the space between the keeper and the poles as a shortcut. The shoppers gasped and stepped back, the merchant was shouting obscenities instantly, but at that moment Sandy saw her own window and went for it. Accelerating and stretching her arms straight out behind her, she ran right through the gap between the stall and crowd of stunned shoppers, missing one by a fraction of an inch.

On the other side she gave a full sprint to catch up with Altair. "Ten for style!" she shouted as she risked a look over her shoulder, the crowd has slowed the Templars and Richard's men enough that the gap had widened. She turned back to the direction of her run and realized that Altair was right beside her, pacing himself. She idly wondered just how inhumanly fast and strong he had to be to make that sort of jump through a stall with all the gear on him.

The street swept slightly to the right now, and just prior to making the forty five degree bend, Sandy glanced back. The Templars were free of the crowd and hot on their heels, but hopelessly behind, their armor was slowing them down considerably. She turned back to the front and ran.

Suddenly Altair grabbed her arm and she found herself being almost hauled around another bend and right into an alley. There was a clothing line slung low and from it hung a large carpet. They ran past it and Altair stopped her, stilling the carpet from swaying with his hand. Silence reigned as Sandy realized how erratic her breathing had become, he had been right; she shouldn't have tried to talk and run at the same time, not like that. Then she heard the clutter of armor and Altair pushed her into a slightly recessed doorway, covering her frame with his as he peered around the carpet towards the mouth of the alley.

Sandy tried to catch her breath as she became keenly aware of the ramifications of what they had just done. She was sure that anyone else would've called that a tactical retreat, she called it outright running since your life depended on it. Altair's arms were on the door on either side of her shoulders, and her back was flush to the wood. She turned her head to look out into the mouth of the alley, but she couldn't see much because of the projecting doorjamb. She put her hands on Altair's chest, hopefully to push him away an inch or two, but his left hand brushed her shoulder and Sandy stilled.

"Be still," he whispered.

Sandy looked back at him and her tongue caught in her throat when she realized that he had lowered his head to whisper into her ear and that put him so close that his ragged breath fanned her cheeks. The step she stood on gave an extra inch of height to him. Then came the dejavu, it hadn't been long since the first time he had pinned her to the wall in his quarters after the misunderstanding, but he had been further away from her that time, this time was different.

Their breathing was synchronized and ragged by the run, adrenaline had given her a state of hyperawareness, and at that moment, pinned in that recessed doorway, she was aware of everything that was him. She didn't need to be told twice to remain silent and not move. Movement would expose them in the shadows. The human eye was such that it perceived even the faintest movement in the field of vision, no matter how low-light the conditions were.

How long did she have to stay like that, she didn't know, and it didn't matter. The fact that they had just booked it on the Grand Master of the Knights Templar didn't matter; she knew she was safe as long as Altair was there. Something in his presence was causing her treacherous heart to accelerate until she was sure the Templars would be able to hear it. The fire came, coiling around her spine in tendrils, rippling through her nerves, frightening and welcome at the same time. Her left hand on his chest found a hold on the straps of the harness that held up his short blade and suddenly he shifted his weight and Sandy closed her eyes.

His hand brushed her side and it felt like she was touched by a live wire, an explosion of sparks raced through her whole body. It jarred her back into reality, causing her eyes to fly open as she tried to contain a tiny little shiver. She could feel Altair tense, his gaze locked on the mouth of the alley and she became aware of the faint clutter of armor, there was a Templar in the alley! At that moment she found herself wishing to kill the poor sap, anything to bring back the strange addictive feelings that she hadn't finished categorizing.

A window above opened and there was a great splash of water hitting the ground of the alley. The Templar shouted in alarm and began to curse, whoever it was at the window began to apologize at having not seen the man. Sandy glanced up at Altair, he was grinning faintly, amused by what he was seeing and Sandy wished she could see. Was the templar soaked? If so it was the least that he deserved!

Armor cluttered, fading as the man exited the alley, still muttering curses and insults under his breath. The person in the window chuckled, Sandy could hear the amusement from the woman, and she idly wondered if they had been in fact helped by a concerned, Templar-hating citizen.

"We better leave as soon as they're gone," Altair whispered.

Sandy sighed in relief as he moved away finally, allowing her some more breathing room, but she couldn't help grinning at the sheer ridiculousness of what just happened. "I can't believe we actually got away with that. By God… I hope we never see Robert again, I imagine he'll be pretty pissed that you gave him the slip like that."

Altair returned her grin, "Not the first time. Come, before they come back."

Sandy followed wordlessly as they exited the alley, cautiously checking that the way was clear. The Templars were some distance down the street, far enough that they wouldn't see two white figures fleet across the street to the next alley. Sandy followed behind Altair as quickly as she could, feeling like some sort of cat burglar in broad daylight.

They walked relatively calmly as to not draw any more attention, Sandy then remember her observation and it got her wondering. "Altair, you know how you said I have this knack for seeing stuff others miss. I may have something interesting."

"What information did you get off that?" Altair asked dubiously.

"Nothing pertaining your current target, but I may have something scandalous nevertheless. Now you know there were nine goons, eight of them didn't have their helmets on, but the last one did-"

"That one is Robert's retainer or steward, I have seen him before."

"What if I told you that it wasn't a him that you were seeing, but a _her_?" Sandy asked.

Altair stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at her, "The Templars would not have a woman among them."

"I know, I know! They're an order of men, supposedly… but I also know what I saw. There are a couple signs, for one, when Robert cracked that one about assassins employing women, I saw that retainer look at him quickly, she was surprised, but she caught herself. Then there are the physical clues, she's not tall enough, not wide enough in the shoulders-" She glanced up at Altair and noticed his raised eyebrows, he was listening, but he was still not convinced. "It's simple, we women have this proportion thing, you probably haven't ogled girls enough to notice that our hips are always wider than our shoulders, it's to make childbirth easier- point is- that one's hips were definitely wider than the shoulders."

"That sort of observation doesn't serve me."

Sandy rolled her eyes, "I have one word for you, _blackmail_. If I'm right and the retainer is a woman, oh just think what I have on Robert de Sable. Imagine what would happen if the news got out. Oh the scandal, oh the ruin!"

"Oh the men he'll send after you." Altair finished.

"If he'll still _have_ any men to send after me," Sandy replied.

"Are you always quick to notice ways to ruin someone?" Altair asked as he resumed his pace.

"Hey, they say knowledge is power, and with this kind of knowledge- don't go thinking I'm some sort of dimwit to reveal my aces too fast, this one can have its uses under a limited set of circumstances."

"Those being?"

"I haven't got an idea, but I'm sure if I actually was under a set of circumstances that applied, I'd know. Yes, I realize that blackmailing him would be imprudent; he'd just send a bunch of his goons to kill me. However if I were to expose his improprieties around someone even higher up, I'm sure he might be inclined to sing a different tune."

"The only one whom Robert de Sable could even remotely fear would be King Richard himself."

Sandy hummed, but in her view things weren't quite that narrow. "There's one more." She added. "They're a religious order, right? Well I'm sure if some archbishop found out-" she muttered. "Okay so what are the odds of me getting to talk to either King or Archbishop, but I know that there is a vague possibility. Failing that, this is a hoot! He's a total hypocrite!"

"That we'll agree on."

The conversation lapsed after that, Sandy was unsure of what else to talk about. She knew full well that her little observation was nigh useless to him, hence she'd have to find something else to earn her keep, still, what she had just seen was amusing enough.

"So where to now?" she wondered, trying to steer the matter at hand back to the job, anything to kill the silence so that her mind wouldn't wander off to the fact that they had been too close back in that alley. It was only by virtue of the adrenaline in her body that she wasn't a puddle of goop on the floor right at that moment. In her life she'd only been that close to any male a total of two times and both those had been total disasters. This third time was different, for one it didn't involve a high school boyfriend trying to go for first base with limited experience, but she had felt something odd back there herself. A gravitational pull towards him that was probably also the product of adrenaline, but it had been strong and it still lingered somehow.

_Real pathetic Sandy, he was trying to save your life and all you could think of was-_ she began to berate herself but then realized that if she was truthful with herself, like she made a policy of being, then there had been only one thing on her mind in that moment, a crazy sort of urge to close that last distance and kiss him. _What are you, in high-school again? In real life, that sort of fluffy-wuffy mushy thing doesn't happen. Add to that, he probably wouldn't talk to you ever again. There's no need to be screwing up a perfectly good friendship for one of those crazy urges,_ the self-berate continued. _Besides, rules are rules are rules, you heard the master,_ her mind added as a final salvo. With that decided she tried to put on an unaffected face as she followed Altair, despite the fact that she felt like pouting.

They emerged unto the main street again near the entryway into an old, covered market street. Sandy automatically checked up and down the street for any Templars, the last thing they needed now was more of them. It seemed like the group they encountered on the road had been right, they had been ordered to go after Assassins, and the earlier encounter on the street had only been peaceful by virtue of Robert de Sable's desires to mock and harass his targets before he had them killed. Sandy could honestly say she disliked people who did that sort of thing, and had she not been utterly intimidated by his sheer size, she would have said something about it.

"Keep close," Altair noted.

Sandy adjusted the hood of the cloak and fell in step next to him as they entered the covered market. The market wasn't as abandoned as the rafiq had led her to believe, but it wasn't as busy as some of the open street markets. It seemed like there was some construction happening, there was scaffolding around and other clues.

"Altair, I'm curious- when we get out of this place, can you point me to the- well you know- the location. I don't want to say it out loud; you never know who else has superman hearing around here."

"Alright, when we're done here."

"I was also thinking- it's got to be pretty closed in, right? I mean if I know my period construction like I think I do-" Sandy murmured. In her mind she could see a cloistered place similar to the halls of Masyaf, maybe even more so enclosed. She didn't think that a twelfth century hospital would be anything like a twenty-first century one. "Pardon my lack of confidence, but I just don't see how you could get in and out alive."

"I have my methods," Altair replied.

"I'm sure you do, but- I just can't help but worry."

Altair glanced at her and she could see the small grin on his features, he was trying to assure her that he would be fine, but Sandy was just too much of a pragmatic. She saw the dangers of the situation first and foremost, and reverse engineered around these dangers, seeking to remove them from the equation.

"I'm an elite assassin, the best."

Sandy put her hand on his arm and said nothing more. She wasn't going to tell him by arguing how he was also overconfident. His hand rested hers and he turned to face her. Sandy looked up, wondering what was going on, but there was a mischievous grin on his features.

"You see those men ahead of us?" he asked.

Sandy looked, noting that one of them was draped in a dark cloak branded with a white cross, underneath the cloak he wore the robes of a monk, tied with a cord around his waist. "Is that a Hospitaller?" she wondered.

"Yes, and he may have the information I need. Do you see the bag he's carrying?"

"A messenger? I hope you're not planning on killing the poor man-"

"Unfortunately if that's what it takes. Correspondence is a very important source of information."

"This is messy-"

"This is my job," Altair rebuffed, his tone taking on a sharp note that Sandy almost recoiled from.

She shook her head and frowned, "If it must be… can you just- make it quick?"

"That I can," Altair replied.

Sandy squeezed his arm and it was then that Altair pulled away, "exit this street, there will be a small plaza on the other end. Find a seating place and stay there."

"What if a Templar shows up?"

"If its just one, you can avoid him if you hide in plain sight," With that said Altair walked off, leaving Sandy a little bothered.

Regardless of the fact that she knew there would be an almost unnecessary death soon she followed Altair's instructions and continued down the street, keeping an eye on the messenger. She realized it was a young monk, the sort that was probably not even fully initiated into the ranks of the knights. As they crossed paths she looked away and kept walking.

~*~*~*~

Altair followed the monk at a distance; he was of the nervous, jittery kind. A young new messenger tasked with something semi important? It seemed possible. By his age Altair could tell he wasn't older than twenty years, frail and almost effeminate looking, no threat to anyone. Maybe he wouldn't have to kill the boy if he could avoid being seen, let the fool think he was attacked by someone at random.

He followed at a distance for maybe ten minutes, stopping when the monk stopped to deliver a message, and proceeding ahead when the boy did. Judging by the general direction of his walk, he was heading towards the Templar quarter of the city, which annoyed Altair, he knew he had to go after the message before the boy crossed the line into that quarter. With Robert de Sable in the city, his men would be more zealous in their patrols and vigilance.

The boy stopped at the entryway into an alley, carefully looking up and down the street for a tail. Altair lowered his head, clasped his hands, and kept walking, even as he kept both eyes locked on the youth ahead of him. When the boy ducked into the alley, Altair abandoned his monk-charade and followed.

The boy was halfway down the alley and it was just a matter of speeding up his pace to catch up to him. Altair was getting ready to land an incapacitating blow when the boy turned and his eyes widened, Altair cursed and knew that he couldn't let the monk live now. He grabbed him by the back of his robes and swung his whole frame into the wall of the alley hard enough to stun.

"What do you want?" the boy uttered. "I have no money on me, I'm just a humble messenger-"

"Your master is Garnier de Naplouse, correct?" Altair demanded.

"Ye-yes."

"Then you can tell me where I can find him at any given hour."

"The hospital is your best option, but he is busy with the patients, there are so many sick and wounded, and even he in his great mercy is only one man."

Altair paused, he had expected as much, and striking within the hospital would be easier than hunting down Garnier in the quarters of the Knights Hospitaller.

"If that is all you wanted to know, there was no need to attack me. I would have told you gladly-"

"That's not all," Altair interrupted. "I have interests in the contents of your bag."

"Oh that I cannot let you see," the boy argued.

"You have no choice." Altair replied, grabbing the youth by the front of his robes and introducing into his stomach the hidden blade. The boy gasped, his eyes widening, and Altair let him go.

"Why?" he asked on his final wheezing breath as he collapsed. Altair watched him as the final spark of life left and the body went limp on the ground. Then he crouched, setting one knee on the ground as he reached for the bag. It wasn't a big, and by now it was mostly empty. Inside were only five remaining, four written on parchment sealed with the seal bearing the cross that belonged to the Knights Hospitaller and one on Vellum with a red wax seal. Even before Altair saw the crest on the seal, he knew what it was, another mysterious letter like the one Cassandra found on the Templars messenger by the well.

He rolled the vellum letter up carefully, slipping into his pouch, the rest he unsealed and looked over right in the alley, but they were routine correspondence, the first was a requisition for additional beds to be made, so that more patients could be accommodated in the main ward.

The second was a list of herbs addressed to a major supplier, nothing strange or interesting in it except for a surprisingly large amount of Opium. It made Altair wonder if Garnier was experimenting with the foul substance on his patients. It didn't matter, because if Garnier was, he wouldn't be at it for much longer.

The third letter contained an order for more linen, it seemed like the hospital was nearly out of bandage materials, again, nothing unexpected given the injuries the that the men of Richard's army had probably sustained during the last days of the siege, the Hospitallers would be tasked with their care as well.

It was the fourth parchment letter that caught Altair's eye, a repair order on the chandeliers in the main ward, it seemed like the hospital was undergoing renovations, which meant that there would be scaffolding and temporary supports erected. Altair got to his feet, discarding the letters as he did, their contents memorized well enough to serve him. He turned to the end of the alley and began to walk calmly.

The repair order gave him ideas; he would have to scout out the perimeter of the hospital for possible exit way afforded to him by the scaffolding that was undoubtedly inside. No one else was capable of the feats he was capable of, so any such elevated, difficult escape path would be an asset to him. He began to make his way to the place where he told Cassandra to be, unsealing the vellum letter was going to be her little reward for following orders.

~*~*~*~

Sandy eyed the crowd as she sat on the bench near the edge of the square she had been pointed to. People came and went and she kept an eye out for anyone clad in white, which would mean Altair was returning. The city really did seem like a depressed place, the mothers led their children by the hand; as if afraid of letting go, les the child go missing in an instant. The children themselves were not smiling or laughing, even they felt the tension in the atmosphere and the somber mood of the city.

She spotted Altair emerging out of the crowd, the jaunt in his step told her that he was in a better mood; she could tell that the messenger had proven somehow useful. She smiled when he sat down on the bench next to her and she placed her hand on his arm as a greeting.

"Did you find the opportunity?" Sandy asked.

"I need to scout the hospital first, but there may be a possibility."

"I was sitting here and noticing just how depressed people are in this city. Even the children can't seem to laugh."

"War is like that," Altair replied.

"Well that's that then. Where to now?" Sandy asked.

"I will need to scout the hospital alone, in the meanwhile-"

"I rather not go back to the Bureau, I don't know, I don't feel comfortable being there."

"I don't want you wandering the streets."

Sandy smiled and threw her gaze up to the sky. "What about this? I go and have a nice long bath while you're doing the scouting. I imagine there's a nice bathhouse in town, and when you're done- just come and get me."

Altair hummed thoughtfully, and Sandy grinned. It seemed like a solid idea to her, bathhouses were gender sequestered right? How much trouble could she get herself into if she stuck to the female half for a couple hours? Even if there were knights in the male half, she wouldn't see them. Add to that, she really needed a good long soak to calm her nerves after that brush with the Templars.

"Fine, but you will use the bathhouse I have in mind. It's a little out of the way but the area should be relatively devoid of crusaders, it's in the Jewish quarter of the city."

"I have no problem with that," Sandy smiled. "Thank you."

"Take an extra towel and keep your knives wrapped in it, I don't want you unarmed at any point in that bathhouse."

"I don't think the other women would bother me," Sandy protested, but her argument died when she got a good look at Altair's expression. "Fine, it's not a problem."

"Scouting will probably take longer than an hour."

"That's fine; I could use a nice long soak. So we're doing it this evening or something?" she asked.

"Yes, but first, there was an item on the messenger that will be of interest to you."

"Something tells me it's a letter," Sandy grinned.

"Vellum, strange seal," Altair stated as his eyes swept the crowd, his voice was teasing, but at the same time it was serious.

Sandy was genuinely surprised, "Are we talking same seal as-"

"Same seal, same material."

"What is up with these orders? Ferrying strange messages back and forth- you don't think that- well we know who wrote the first one, but why would-"

"You're rambling."

"I'm sorry. I'm just trying to make sense of it."

"Wait until you see the letter."

"Well stop teasing me and let me see it!" Sandy argued.

Altair grinned; the expression just at the edge of a smile. Sandy held out her hand, grinning back at him. He shook his head and reached into his pouch for the letter, which he handed to Sandy casually.

She checked the seal and it was indeed the same strange geometric design that she had seen on the letter that came from the Templar messenger at the well. She broke the seal and unfolded the letter. The handwriting jumped at her immediately.

"Off the bat I can tell you the handwriting is different, notice the irregular spacing, the short strokes used, and the size. The writer is someone who is older, their eyesight is starting to give, and while writing this they were in a hurry."

"You can tell that much from the writing alone?" Altair asked.

"I'll explain it later, for now I'll say that handwriting is absolutely unique to each person." Sandy murmured as she read the letter, "Jesus almighty…" Sandy looked up after getting only about halfway down. "This is bad. This is very bad. This letter speaks of a man that the writer and recipient both knew, a man with interesting information, apparently something he fed to the two, but he's dead now. The writer is complaining that the information he received is incomplete and that's stalling the progress of his experiments."

"Experiments?" Altair repeated as he leaned over her shoulder to read the letter.

"Herbs, mixtures- there's no details. I don't know-"

"There was an order for a large quantity of Opium among the letters I left with the messenger."

"Opium?" Sandy started. "He speaks of people dying because he can't find the amount that will do whatever it is he wants. Christ, Altair- whatever he is trying to do-"

"I know, the resistance he speaks of-"

"It's not resistance, its tolerance. The human body is a wonderful machine, expose yourself to small doses of poison over time, and you will develop a tolerance if not outright immunity-"

"I knew that."

"Opium is different, even if an overdose doesn't kill you, it has effects on the body- continued exposure to high doses and it compounds- he must be stopped!"

"He will be."

Sandy leaned on the wall behind her and tried to reason out why someone would do that. "So much for the Hippocratic Oath."

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Hippocratic Oath: This is an oath taken by all medical practitioners, and it codifies the behavior expected from a good doctor. It originates from the 4th or 5th Century BC, Greece. The line Sandy thinks of is the most famous, the clause to do no harm.

**Director's Notes:**

I wish I could actually work on my stories freely; the last couple weeks have been utter hell. I can barely keep up with my writing and my class assignments. Too much work, too little time, I feel like a nun, my life is too cloistered right now. This chapter would've been up sooner, but the site wouldn't let me log on for something like 12 hours. Typical curse for me.

This chapter challenged me on a couple plains, namely once again adapting the investigation and making sure to lay out a couple hints and clues to other things, I shall not spoil. I hope you enjoyed it.

Oh and one more thing, I've been meaning to do with for the longest time, but it's been slipping my mind a lot. I decided to kind of mention the song I use to inspire some of the best scenes in this fic. I decided to start with the 'candle lighting scene' from chapter twelve. The song behind that one is _'The look of love'_ by Diana Krall.


	21. Clear and present danger, part III

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXI:**__ Clear and present danger, part III_

Altair walked across the rooftops away from the bathhouse and towards the towering monolith of stone that was the hospital. The day was already turning to twilight and he took his time getting there.

The hospital was a huge construct, part fortress, part monastery with an attached church and barracks for the Hospitaller knights stationed in the city. He had to circumvent a large square in front of the fortress, but finally he found a spot from which he could observe the parapets of the hospital. Predictably there was a contingent of archers around, but their eyes were dulled by the fading light of the sun, allowing Altair to move freely as he approached from the east of the hospital.

He counted ten archers on duty, but it wasn't hard to notice small gaps in their patrols, ten seconds at a time there was a window in which one part of the parapets became unseen. It wasn't hard to figure out what the archers could see if one followed their idiosyncratic patrols. The ten second window would be useful if the information about the chandeliers proved true. Now all he needed was an access from the parapets to the central ward.

Altair circled slowly, keeping on the lookout for more archers, he didn't need altercations while scouting, and it might raise suspicions if a body was discovered too close to the hospital.

Sandy ran her wet hands through her hair, working the dust and dirt out of her locks as she sat on the bench inside the bathhouse. This bathhouse differed from the one in Masyaf, and she could honestly say she preferred Masyaf's, because there was a pool there, this one didn't have one, and one also had to pay to use it.

There were also children around, both boys, no older than ten, and girls with their mothers. The children frolicked with the water, splashing and shouting back and forth. Attendant women walked among the bathers, distributing washcloths and at least one girl was selling helpings of fragrant oils, to which the single women helped themselves more readily than the married ones.

She noticed the looks she was getting from the other women, but she figured it was entirely because she was new and her hair stood out. Sandy was used to being seen as weird even before she tripped eight hundred eighteen years into the past. She paid attention to the details of what was going on around her instead. By the small gatherings of women talking only among themselves Sandy knew that most of the women here knew each other. Those who came with children probably came in to get away from their husbands and gossip while washing their brood and themselves. It was kind of nice and quaint in a way.

The doors opened and a puff of air entered the room, announcing the arrival of another woman. Sandy took stock of her as a matter of course, having no one to talk to; she amused herself by trying to 'profile' the arrivals. This woman wrapped in a large sheet of linen that constituted as a robe and towel, the way she clutched at it seemed to hint at more modesty than some of the other woman in the room. She was also relatively young, maybe her age, or just slightly younger. Sandy wouldn't have paid any more attention were it not for the simple fact that this woman stopped cold when their eyes locked, though barely a split second later she came out of the startled reaction with poise and grace, giving her a faint little smile that looked a little apologetic.

The gesture got Sandy interested; on a second cursory look she began to notice that this woman wasn't one of the local women, they all had bronze skin, while this woman's skin was fair and almost untouched by the sun. She did have the dark, almost black hair of the rest of the women here, which was a little strange. Sandy classified the woman as an oddity like her, and turned away and went back to her methodical self-cleaning ritual.

"Can we share the faucet?" a voice asked.

Sandy looked up in surprise and noted that it was the same strange woman who had spoken. She stood some feet away, still clutching at her covering. There was a slight English accent in her voice, as if most of it was suppressed; it hinted that this woman was indeed foreign like her.

"Sure," Sandy replied, reaching over to pull the bundle of clothing that concealed her knives closer towards herself. She had followed Altair's instructions in sneaking the weapons into the bathhouse by virtue of a washcloth.

The woman sat down on the bench next to her and reached for the wooden bucket that sat next to the fountain which Sandy was using as a source of water. There were ten such fountains around the chamber, but she had one all to herself somehow, perhaps because she was just that strange.

"You're new here?" the woman asked.

"Yes, first time."

"Ah." The woman nodded her head and smiled.

"And you?" Sandy asked.

"I have been here a few times before."

"I'm Cassandra, and you?" Sandy offered, odds were, she wouldn't see this woman again, why bother being rude? She figured she could use a little bit of conversation to make the time go by faster, Altair probably wouldn't be back for another hour, if not longer. Who knew how long scouting would take?

"Mary," the woman smiled. "I've never seen another European in this bathhouse, so pardon my surprise,"

Sandy grinned and went back to scrubbing; European was a good term for her lineage. Like most Canadians she could trace her origin to a number of nations, a pair of her great grandparents on her mother's side had been Greek. Her father's father came from somewhere in northern Europe, bestowing his hair on her father, and hence on her. The eyes were a gift from her mother by virtue of her father, who had been from Slavic descent. Her DNA was more scrambled than an egg in a frying pan.

"Where do you come from?" Mary wondered.

Sandy paused in her routine and pondered, she didn't know what to lie when it came to that. She had fed a couple stories to various people who asked, the rafiq of Damascus was positive that she was a victim of the Barbary Pirates. Antonio probably thought she was a crusader's daughter or something, and who knew what everyone else thought? She really needed to come up with a convincing legend for herself that would deflect these kinds of questions; in the meantime she knew she had to adlib. "I'm here with someone," she smiled.

"Someone?" Mary asked, leaning in closer, curious. "Something tells me that's a man."

"Yes."

"He left you here alone?" Mary asked.

"He has some work, important matters, but he'll be back."

"He treats you well?" Mary asked, before pouring some water over her head to wet her hair.

"In his way." Sandy thought of Altair, he did a lot of things in his own way, understanding him required a slightly twisted point of view.

"His way?"

Sandy paused, wondering is she should be talking like this to someone she had just met, but odds were she wouldn't see this woman again, and as long as she minded the sensitive topics, some female gossip on the topic of the nature of men, or one man in particular, was harmless, right? "He's- there are times when he pretends I don't exist- but other times, times when I need him the most, he's there for me."

Mary hummed, but to Sandy it seemed like she wasn't buying it. She glanced at the woman and noted the look of doubt on her expression, it was a little strange. "It seems to me like he's hardly reliable if he acts like that."

"I do not question his reliability, as I said, when I need his help the most- he's always there. He's my best friend and my confidant. I would share with him things that I would not share with anyone else. Knowing what I know about him, I'm not that surprised that he's hardly the affectionate kind. He can be blunt, but that's what makes the rare smile all the more irresistible."

"You're lucky to have a lover like that," Mary smiled.

"We're not lovers." Sandy replied quickly, blushing at the thought. Altair and her, lovers? The thought made her uncomfortable; the word 'lover' had some implications in her mind, ones that she really wasn't comfortable with. Some girls in her time had sex at sixteen, and marriage at that age was common in this time, but for her, at twenty-two, she hadn't even thought about it. Her previous experiences with men could be contenders for a Guinness record in the shortest most meaningless relationships ever. She wanted more than just a teenage-level connection bred of lust and hormones; she wanted something deeper than that. What were the odds of that happening now? She had been bound by the Assassin's Creed and their rules even before she realized it, and she had to live with that.

The brain train came to a screeching halt, was she actually regretting accepting the creed because she felt something? The thought jarred her, but the more she mulled over it, the more she turned it over and over in her mind, the more it made sense. In a cheesy romance-novel sort of way she had a few of the symptoms. The incident after the duel had been proof of that, her mood sank like the Titanic when she thought she could never talk to Altair again. _Must be hormones, damned hormones, I need to get my head nice and level, for all I know he is supposed to be with another and if that doesn't happen-_ she thought.

"You talk of him as if you're close."

Sandy smiled, despite the upheaval in her head. "I will confess, I do think he's handsome- but- lets just say our employer would probably stand against it."

"Even if you loved him?" Mary asked.

Sandy glanced up at the ceiling of the bathhouse at the mention of the word 'love' in relation to Altair. When Mary had spoken the word, it felt like something in her chest clenched, "even then," she stated. Sandy wanted to sigh, but she kept the emotions contained. There was no use denying it, she was irrationally attracted to Altair, it had manifested again that day, there was no use denying the fact that she was a female will all the hormones in place, and he was one very good looking male, but that did not mean she had to act on it, and she promised herself that for her own sanity she wouldn't. She had to ignore the strange magnetic pull even if did feel like something more than just a teenaged crush. "I told you my story, Mary, what about you?" Sandy asked, using the silence to steer the topic away from herself.

"I'm here with my brothers, they came to the Holy Land as pilgrims," Mary replied.

"Not crusaders?" Sandy asked.

"We're all crusaders in one way or another," Mary replied.

Sandy laughed at that, it was oddly true; everyone who came to the Holy Land came with some sort of purpose in mind. The pilgrims came to revere at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the knights came in droves to conquer said church from the Saracens, and everyone else came on a personal crusade for profit. Merchants were an opportunistic bunch, win or lose they knew there was money to be made in establishing trade relations with the locals; after all, this is where all the rare goods from the Orient came to.

"Traveling such distances is hard, isn't it?" Sandy asked. Let the girl think that she too had come from some corner of Europe on her own 'crusade'.

"Very, but it is worth it in the end."

"I hope it is," Sandy shook her head. "Since I have arrived to the Holy Land, I have seen things that I would never have imagined. Just coming into the city, the sight of all that ruin beyond the walls-"

"I understand," Mary voiced as she touched Sandy's shoulder. "Oh! You're injured?"

Sandy almost jumped and put her hand on her bound tattoo, before coming to the bathhouse she had covered it with a strip of linen until it did look a lot like a bandage. "It's nothing, just a minor injury."

"You should wash it, it will help it heal."

Sandy felt a mild panic, Mary was right of course, if that area had been injured, washing it would've been the best idea, but it wasn't injured, it was just covering a very easily identifiable mark. Altair had been strict about it; she was not to show her tattoo to anyone outside. Altair didn't even want her showing it to the other men in the brotherhood because it was so strange and unique. While he understood why she had it, no one else probably would.

"My companion bathes it with a special medicinal mixture; he said the water of the bathhouse would be too harsh on it," it was as good a lie as any she figured.

Mary looked dubious and Sandy didn't blame her, that sort of explanation was mostly utter bullshit, but it was the only thing she could adlib on short notice.

Altair took his time circling the hospital along the rooftops; eventually he spotted a shattered stain-glass window. As far as he could see from the distance, there was scaffolding underneath it on the inside, and in the evening light, the glow of the chandeliers from the main ward filtered through it with a faint flickering.

He circled until he found the supply houses, their rooftops were close enough to the buildings outside the hospital's wall that he could readily get past the walls. Beyond there lay a short route, protected by one archer that would have to be taken care of, and eventually he traced an access line right unto the parapets were the other archers were. He'd have to dodge them, so timing would be crucial, but the route seemed like a very viable exit point. Certainly it was not a way that any guard would expect.

He just needed an entry method now, and given how many monks and scholars came and went to and from the hospital in the last hour that he had been observing the main entrance, he was sure that in the morning hours there would be more of them. If he could blend among a group of scholars, the guards would not interfere with his entry.

A part of him wondered why he had been assigned to kill Garnier now, the man had been suspected of abuse for months. There were even allegations that he got some of the subjects for his experiments from other cities, otherwise healthy people often abducted on the streets. The thought of those abductions was partly the reason he didn't want Cassandra wandering the streets alone. He didn't want to tell her what he knew, because she probably wouldn't take it well, arguing that she could keep herself safe. Maybe she could, he wouldn't deny the fact that she was rather skilled in delivering death in her own way, but he believed that it was best not to take chances. If she fell in to the hands of someone like Garnier, there would be very little that he would be able to do for her. By the time he could rescue her, who knew what horrors she'd have to live through, he wouldn't wish that upon Robert de Sable, never mind the plucky vivacious girl he traveled with.

Altair paused in his thinking as he crouched there on the rooftop, watching that shattered window. It wasn't the first time that he had thought of protecting the woman, even doing things slightly different from his normal way for her benefit. The brush with the Templars during the day had been another such instance; normally he would've stood his ground and fought. He could take nine Templars and their Grand Master. He owed Robert de Sable some payback for the event of three months ago when Kadar had been killed and Malik had lost his arm. However, with the woman in the picture, he knew that if he stood and fought, she would likely get hurt. The Templar at the well had been blind luck mixed with a lot of surprise; the man had probably not expected a woman to lash out as she had. Her gender gave her that card in nearly every situation, except this one. These nine would have been different, Robert had identified her as an Assassin, and they would have spared her no quarter. To Altair, the thought of her hurt in any way was unacceptable. There would be other chances for him to stick his hidden blade into Robert de Sable's neck for what he had done. With that decision, he only had one more question for himself. When had protecting Cassandra become more important than revenge for that black day?

He thought back to the moment in the alley when they had been so close that their breath had mingled, she had clung to him, but not of fright. He knew what her fear looked like, and that hadn't been it. She had been animated, lively, her skin rouged by the run and the excitement of the chase. There was some child-like enjoyment there, and maybe it was because she did not understand the scope of the true danger she was in, but in that moment she looked absolutely beautiful.

"You there!" a voice called, jarring Altair from his musings. He looked up and spotted an archer approaching, a silent curse found its way unto his lips. In his thinking of the woman, he had lapsed too far into thought and lost track of the surroundings, something he normally never allowed. "You're not supposed to be here."

He didn't need to leave a body this close to the hospital; it might trigger a change in the guard rotations and duties. "I was just leaving," Altair stated.

"Good, then be gone."

Seeing no other option in this case, Altair turned and wandered off, normally he would've just killed the archer who dared interrupt his thinking, but in this case he couldn't afford the body lying around. He descended to the street via the first convenient ladder and then proceeded to the Jewish district where he left Cassandra.

With her bath done, Sandy had gotten dressed and together with Mary, made her way to the women's lounge. It was a large room set aside for the pleasures of the women after their baths; where they could sit and talk for a little bit longer.

"Your companion seems late," Mary observed as she sipped her tea.

"He's a busy man," Sandy replied.

"What does he do?"

Sandy paused cold, crunch time, she knew full well that she couldn't say 'oh he's an assassin, just the best one too.' She'd have to come up with a damn good excuse quick. "I didn't tell you, did I? He's a mercenary; we work for the same merchant. I cook- the man is highly paranoid, he sees poison everywhere!"

"Must be difficult," Mary voiced.

"What work isn't?" Sandy asked. "It's the nature of work to be difficult; you do what you have to get by."

"Of course," Mary nodded her head and ran a hand through her hair, pushing the still moist strands behind her shoulder.

Sandy found herself feeling a little envious of the woman's hair, her own wasn't as thick, and it tended to get all frizzy and wavy when wet. She hacked it mercilessly on a regular basis, just to keep it from being a needless burden. Her mother would always say that the reason she didn't have a boyfriend is because she made herself look ugly on purpose with such acts. Sandy always argued that she didn't have a boyfriend because she was a helluvalot smarter than most guys her age, and that made them feel impotent, a feeling they didn't like to have.

"You know, if I had known his errands would take this long, I would've gotten that massage we were offered," Sandy commented. It was premium service, and would've cost her a little bit of her stash of Templar coins, but her back would have thanked her for it. She had seen some of the other women enjoy it; the workers seemed to know what they were doing.

"Me too," Mary laughed softly.

"Well maybe next time?" Sandy stated, though she was pretty sure that 'next time' wouldn't be any time soon.

"Why not?" Mary mused with a smile.

A servant came around, refilling their cups of tea which they drank in silence, even as Sandy's mind began to wander back to Altair. What if he had gotten himself into hot water? She was beginning to genuinely worry.

"This bathhouse won't be open all night, if he's not back by closing- maybe you should come with me? I won't harm you."

"Thank you, Mary. But I'll have to decline. If he's not back soon- I'll just return to the inn we stay at on my own. It's not far from here, and I figure if I stick to the open streets, I shouldn't encounter much trouble."

"That's a shame, but-" Mary shook her head. "Next time?"

"Next time," Sandy agreed.

One of the few male workers approached them, "Excuse me, madam; you wouldn't happen to be Cassandra?"

"I am," Sandy replied.

"I was asked to notify you that there is a man at the doors claiming to be your companion; he said you asked him to come for you."

"Is he tall, dressed in while tunics and cowl, carries some weapons?"

"Indeed."

"Ah Mary, he's back. Speak of the devil he shall appear as they say." Sandy got up from her seat, and then she turned to the worker, "thank you, I shall go see him now."

"You're welcome, madam." The worker nodded his head and walked off.

Sandy and Mary finished their cups of tea in a bit of a rush and Sandy led her friend back to the doors of the bathhouse, past the men's quarters. Once outside, she spotted Altair rapidly, he stood in shadows of the building across the street from the door of the bathhouse, arms crossed over his chest. Even in the dim light she could see the satisfied quirk on his lips, he was in a good mood, which meant that he wouldn't be as crabby as he normally was. Not that Sandy thought there was something wrong with being crabby, still, it was a little oppressive coming from a man who made her thankful that looks couldn't kill.

As soon as she approached he pushed off the wall and let his arms drop to his sides, "Who's your new friend?" he asked.

Sandy rolled her eyes and put on a smile, "Altair, this is my new friend Mary." She turned to Mary and motioned to Altair, "Mary, this is Altair, the companion I was talking about."

"You did not tell me he was so-" Mary began, but cut herself off, as if unable to finish that sentence.

Sandy noted that Altair was giving the other woman a very cool glare; she put her hand on his upper arm and turned to Mary. "He's harmless, really." She said with a smile.

"Considering the weapons, I somehow doubt that," Mary observed.

"It's the times, you know," Sandy waved her hand. "Well- I'm sorry Mary, but we must go before we are missed. I bid you a good night, please get home safely."

"Oh I will. Same to you, have a good night."

"I plan to, I travel with my favorite pillow," Sandy replied with a cheeky little grin.

Mary chuckled, turned and walked off, leaving the two of them alone.

Sandy noted that Altair wouldn't take his eyes off the woman as she walked down the street; he only looked away when she vanished around a corner. Finally he glanced back at her, and then the grin appeared on his features. "Come, before that pillow of yours leaves you behind," he commanded as he began to walk.

Sandy caught up to him and put her hand on his arm again. "You wouldn't." she stated, smiling. "Besides. I know where you live."

"What did you tell her?" Altair asked after a moment of silence.

"Nothing much, we mostly talked about men. You know- female gossip. She thinks you're employed as a bodyguard for a merchant, and that I'm just a humble cook."

"Who is she?" Altair wondered.

"She said she was here with some companions on a pilgrimage."

"She lied," Altair replied.

"And how do you know that?" Sandy wondered.

"Your keen eyes failed you; her right hand has the calluses of a sword user."

"That- I _didn't_ notice." Sandy frowned as she thought about; if it was true then could Mary be some sort of fighter? "Geez, I think you're right… I got lulled into a false sense of security by her."

"Did you tell her anything other than-"

"No, nothing… I wouldn't have answered if her questions got too probing. I'm not _that_ gullible."

"We won't be in town for long for it to matter anyways. I have all the information I need; I will end Garnier's life tomorrow."

"That's good. The atmosphere in this city is depressing me. I'm not usually this vain, but it's true."

She arrived at the door of a small wood and stone house in the center of the Templar district and knocked on the door. Five seconds later it opened and she was ushered inside by a wizened old woman who smiled faintly. The woman was mute after what some of the Saracens had done to her, but she was dependable, and money made her even more so.

Nodding her thanks to the woman, she walked up the upstairs. The house was a tiny one, consisting of two bedrooms that took up the whole upper level, a main sitting room on the first floor, and a kitchen. It was perched against the walls of the Templar fortress, one of the safest places in the city for what happened there.

Stepping into her room, she made her way over to the screen where she could change out of her current clothes into what she normally wore. She heard the door click shut and the elderly woman's steps shuffling away. With her gone she began to remove the clothing that consisted her other persona, shedding the local dresses and the wrap she wore in favor of the tunics and pants she preferred.

She knew she had to dress quickly, she would be missed soon if not already. The clandestine trip to the baths had taken far longer than it normally did, but she reasoned that her explanation why would interest her lord more than the fact that she was late.

She had just begun binding her breasts with a long strip of linen when there was a knock on the door. It was rough and loud, much stronger than anything the elderly woman who owned the house would use. Just from the sound she knew who it was.

"I'm still dressing," she called out, ducking behind the screen again. She could call out such words, but she knew that he would not bother heeding them. Just as surely the door opened and closed as a pair of footsteps walked across the wooden floor, stopping in the middle of the room.

"Do you know how inconvenient it is for me to come looking for my steward, Maria?"

"I have a reason why my bath took twice as long as it normally does. You will never guess whom I met in the in the bathhouse."

"I do not care even if it was the Virgin Mary."

Maria chuckled at the words; he could be so impatient when he wasn't having his way. "What if I told you that I met that woman who was with that assassin?" she asked.

"You talked to her?"

Maria noticed the slight change in Robert's tone and it made her grin privately behind the changing screen. She loved those moments when she had something over him, those brief instances when she knew something he would really want. "Her name is Cassandra, and I got a look at her clothing too. She wears the same sort of strange pants that George had, you were right, she is a fallen."

"Those blasted assassins." Robert cursed under his breath, but Maria could hear the words in the silence of the room. "What else did you find out?"

Maria finished tying the knot on her bindings and reached for the chemise that hung over the top of the screen. "She's a clever liar, when I asked her of whom she was traveling with, she spoke of the assassin, but she said he was a mercenary working for a merchant. I could not call her out on that lie without exposing myself." She pulled the chemise on and adjusted the lacing and the cuffs before she reached for the tunic she wore underneath her chainmail hauberk.

"Why didn't you bring her here?" Robert demanded.

"I did offer, but she refused my offer outright, and then the assassin came for her. He was off doing something undoubtedly nefarious and told her to wait for him in the bathhouse. She is very loyal to him."

"This will complicate getting her away from him."

"I don't think it's possible. Seizing her will not work, she probably would not speak willingly," Maria reached for her pants, which also hung over the top of the screen.

"So you have seen the assassin tonight?" Robert asked.

"Yes, in passing. She even introduced him to me- he clearly trusts no one, except possibly her, he would not even speak a word to me."

"He _would_ show her trust, if he wants her information."

"If we do try to get her away from him somehow, it will have to be done quickly. Her loyalty is on the verge of turning into something that cannot be undone," Maria noted. If she was right and the woman harbored some feelings for the assassin that she denied to herself, it wouldn't take much to break her denial and resistance. No one spoke of a 'friend' in the terms she had used.

She heard Robert's agitated footsteps pace across the floor of the bedroom, four steps and a turn, four steps and a turn, repeatedly and evenly. She reached for the chair on the back of which hung her hauberk. Without a squire of her own the process of wiggling into the armor took time, squires existed for a reason, but she was just a lowly steward as far as people were concerned, stewards did not have squires. No one among the Templars knew the truth, she was privy to a lot more than the rest of them. She was very well within the position of confidant and aide, even if she didn't enjoy the full privileges of such a position. Having a squire was one part of the privilege she would've liked, but it would mean placing trust in one more person to safeguard the secret of her identity and gender, Robert would not have that. Of course he would also never 'lower' himself to helping his steward put on her armor.

"We're going to have to try and arrange another meeting for you, if at all possible. I want more information on when she appeared."

"I would wager she appeared after the murder of George." Maria replied as she unfolded the hauberk, the chainmail rang like a collection of tiny bells, it also weighed as much. It took some effort getting into on your own, but she had practices this rare art to perfection.

"If that is true-" Robert began as he stopped his pacing. "Tamir's death is not for his business ethics. It seems our former ally has decided to eliminate those who know of the fallen, or associate with those who do. He wants to keep the girl all to himself."

"Then we know who in Acre is in danger, and where the Assassin is most likely to strike," Maria finished.

"I will keep you busy tonight; there are letters that need to be written. Finish dressing and come to my keep." With that said Robert de Sable exited the room, closing the door behind himself with enough force that the wood rattled.

Maria rolled her eyes and tried to keep the grin off her face. She knew that Robert would never raise his hand against her, but making her life a living hell for a couple of days was well within his will and power. She had learned to stop feeling affronted when he came up with one of his punishments. If it meant being one step closer to her dream of being a knight, she would persevere. As it was, dictation seemed mild, she would've thought that she'd be busy working as a mail reader until her vocal cords went hoarse, but no, dictation meant that it would be her hand that would be feeling it. He was a brutal dictator, taking almost malicious pleasure in speaking just fast enough that she had to scramble to keep up; just to see her squirm. _All it's a day's good work_ she thought ruefully as she reached for the cloth cap that kept her hair bound under her coif. All in an effort to make her remember just how much she owed him, and how much he practically owned her. Fortunately she happened to be left-handed when it came to writing.

The evening was pleasant enough that they decided to take the scenic route to the Bureau. Sandy was in a good mood, despite the fact that her mind was still circling on the question of what to do tomorrow. She'd be cooped up in the Bureau, the one place she felt least comfortable. Acre's rafiq was less than hospitable to her, and she wondered if that would ever change.

"Did you get into the scented oils?" Altair asked.

Sandy looked up at him and grinned, "Just a couple drops, I never smelled Jasmine before, so- I couldn't help myself."

Altair hummed and kept walking.

"Hopefully you're not allergic to it."

"Allergic?" he wondered.

"It's a condition, sort of like- well the body just doesn't like something, and reacts to it all weird. Most people are allergic to things like dust, they begin sneezing at it. Some people are allergic to particular scents, and some are allergic to foods, like they can't eat certain things without getting slightly ill, some get very ill, some even die."

"The scent does not bother me."

"Of course. You're untouchable," Sandy teased.

"You're unusually bold tonight," his lips tipped into that rare almost smile as he glanced down at her, and Sandy put her hand on his arm in response.

"Nah, I'm still a coward inside." Sandy shook her head. "I am in a good mood though. Though- watch me, I'll be really crabby tomorrow."

"You're always in a good mood after a bath." He noted.

"Next time I am so splurging on the massage too."

"Don't use those Templar coins you have in that bathhouse, we'll have to get you some local currency."

"Yea, you're probably right. I still can't believe that I missed the fact that Mary was lying to my face."

"If it makes you feel better, you're not exactly innocent yourself," Altair noted as he raised his right hand and pulled off his leather glove, "here."

Sandy glanced at his hand and then up at him, "What?"

"I have the same calluses that she had; notice the pattern."

Sandy felt a little weird taking stock of such a thing, but she did anyways. She knew he was right, to avoid such mishaps in the future she had to get more expertise. CSI didn't prepare her for the signs of a sword-user. She took Altair's hand and appraised the thickening of the skin, there were spots on the palm, where the fingers bent at the knuckles, and there were others on the pads of his fingers. She also noticed that the skin between the thumb and the index finger was a little rougher too, abraded against the grip of the sword. The leather glove had protected his hand from the worst of it, but there were still tell-tale signs of someone who had wielded a blade for years. Among the practical observations, she noticed other things as well. His hand was much bigger compared to her own, it dwarfed both of hers and made her feel a little more fragile. The difference in skin tone was also noticeable, and he was also very warm in a comforting sort of way, but that was filed under 'irrelevant data' and slated for deletion known as 'forgetting it'. "Thanks," she stated, letting go of his hand.

"Next time, pay attention." He stated as he put his glove back on, tucking it under the edge of his arm brace.

"I always do," Sandy smiled privately.

* * *

**The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing that I can think of.

**Director's Notes:**

Well I shall shamelessly admit why this chapter was posted on Sunday and not Saturday, I was playing Assassin's Creed II. I don't think anyone would begrudge me that. I had been waiting for it for months. Ezio is such a loveable ham, but I still love Altair more. I also had two papers that needed to be finished, so I'm running on little sleep and less happy juice. I'm getting by, somehow.

I will also add just a brief note on the matter with Robert and Maria, heavy interpretations are ahead. I am sort of fond of both of them in a strange sort of way, more-so Maria than Robert, but- Okay I guess I really don't have a point to make with this one; I'll just say it straight. In the interest of a more involving plot, there will be occasional scenes on their side of the camp.


	22. The Hospitaller, Garnier

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**

* * *

Chapter XXII:**__ The Hospitaller, Garnier_

Sandy woke up at dawn, and she could already tell that she was going to be crabby. Her back ached because she had once again slept with it turned to Altair, simply because she was not comfortable with the idea of the rafiq of Akka commenting on their questionable arrangements. He seemed to disapprove of the fact that they slept anywhere within a mile of each other, she didn't want to know what the argument would be if he saw her using Altair as a pillow.

She turned around and glanced and her companion, as if sensing her gaze he opened one eye and Sandy smiled, "Good morning."

"What happened to being _crabby_?" he wondered groggily.

The way he pronounced the final word made Sandy pretty certain that he didn't fully understand what it meant, but apparently he instinctively knew it wasn't a good thing. Sandy poked him in the side, "You big oaf, I was just saying good morning." She pouted playfully.

Altair grabbed her hand before she could poke him again for good measure. He held it up and their eyes locked, Sandy grinned before poking him with her other, pulling the first free from his grip. His eyes flashed and he opened his mouth to say something when he suddenly stilled. She heard the faint sound of movement from inside the bureau, a second later she felt an arm around her waist and suddenly she was pressed to Altair's chest. Sandy uttered an ill-timed squeak as the rafiq appeared and stopped in the doorway. Knowing what was coming, Sandy buried her face in Altair's chest and honestly wished that something would strike her dead right at that very moment.

"It seems like you two have no problems with waking up," the rafiq stated.

Sandy dug her clawed fingers into Altair's left side where rafiq could not see it, but through the double layers of his tunics she felt little more than the faint outline of muscle and ribs, he probably did not feel any pain at all. The assassin's arm was still tight around her waist, and she was appalled that he would behave like this. Next thing she heard were the older man's footsteps exiting the yard and she looked up, turning a vicious glare on Altair.

"Are you daft?" she whispered. "Now he probably thinks we're breaching _that_ rule."

"If we were breaching that rule," Altair began with a grin as he stared down at her, "we _would_ be having trouble waking up."

"You-" Sandy stopped cold; he did not just insinuate that, did he? She was hearing things, she had to be, because Altair had not just insinuated that if they had been breaking the fraternization rule he would've- her brain utterly melted down at that moment. The scandalous thought made her face and ears color rapidly, and then she felt his fingers ghost over her side and the blush only got worse. Then the blush of embarrassment turned to fury, "you scandal-monger!" she whispered. "Have you no decency left in your body?"

"You take that rule too seriously," Altair stated.

"Of course I do!" Sandy hissed. "Rules are rules for a reason."

"All rules have a time when they must be broken. Do not fool yourself into thinking you follow all the rules all the time. There are rules against starting fires, yet you broke them."

Sandy blinked in surprise, which was a compelling argument alright. In her time she had broken the law with arsons numerous times, enough that she'd be labeled a serial arsonist, if the cops could find a linking thread. She was far smarter than using a single mode of ignition, a single type of accelerant; she varied the details and knew enough about profiling to forgo a pattern. Some would argue that it was a pattern in of itself, make a crime as random appearing, but she had gotten away with it for a number of years, and some of her crimes were successfully placed on the shoulders of others, so she liked to think that she beat the system.

She leaned up, raising her forearms on his chest, leaning on them as she stared into his eyes. "Still, this one, I would think that there would be a reason to follow," she threw out in a vain attempt to argue her point. "I see how it would apply to the creed, it could compromise the brotherhood."

Altair grinned, "A lesser woman might do that, but you're different. Now if you're done with philosophy, I have a job to do."

Sandy pouted; it appeared to her that Altair thought that she could never win the argument, so he decided to stop it because it could take up most of the morning. Maybe he was right, Sandy decided, maybe she was sticking too close to those little rules. She pushed off Altair's chest and moved away. "I rather not risk breaking any rules. You have to remember that this-" she waved her hand around the bureau, "is all I've got. While I'm stuck in the Holy Land, I have no one except the brotherhood."

He touched the top of her head when he sat up, and Sandy pouted again. She was getting patronized again, treated as a child, and she disliked that a lot. Then he moved to retrieve his arsenal and before her eyes her best friend transformed into the killer she often forgot he was.

"You'll be careful, right?" she asked.

Altair glanced down at her for a long moment, "I do not do what I am unable to do," he noted. Sandy would've quipped how in his opinion there was very little he couldn't do, but she kept her mouth shut in favor of smiling, no use antagonizing him. "You behave," he added.

"I'll be the perfect little angel," Sandy replied sweetly.

~*~*~*~

Altair only had a small breakfast before leaving for the hospital. He could eat his fill when he came back. It was bright early morning, the city was only now coming to life, the merchants were setting up their stalls and the women were mulling about with their amphorae of water. Some were gathered in small gaggles to converse about shopping plans, inviting each other to come along. It was at times like these that it was easy to forget that the city was in such turmoil.

He took his time getting to the hospital in favor of gauging the mood of the city guards this morning. There was no sign of increased patrols in the Hospitaller quarter, but his route took him near the boundary with the Teutonic quarter, for being an upstart order formed just three years prior, they had amazing success under the leadership of their first Grand Master, they were yet to be recognized with the same prestige as the Hospitallers or Templars, but they were no less ambitious.

Altair noticed a slight increase in patrols on the streets manned by black-crossed Teutonic knights. Information from the rafiq stated that their quarter was always overprotected. They were given a great responsibility by Richard when they received the city's vital port under their jurisdiction; the order was tasked in keeping it running smoothly so that supplies could arrive steadily. It was seen as a test of fealty for the relatively young order, but really probably because Richard didn't trust the Templars or Hospitallers who had a habit of quarreling with each other and pursuing their own ambitions. Richard probably thought that the new order could be easily manipulated if they wanted recognition in the future. Their Grand Master, a man Altair knew only by name as Sibrand, was keen on fulfilling his job to the best of his abilities with a zeal that could only be rivaled by the Templars.

He arrived at the large square situated outside the Hospitaller fort and spent a moment sweeping the surrounding rooftops; much to his annoyance he noticed an increased archer presence. Probably twenty additional men scattered about at the front of the fortress, not a too problematic number, but it meant he couldn't scout his exit point again to make sure that was still available. For all he knew there were just as many behind the fortress. He almost hated the fact that he had to place blind trust that the ten second windows on the parapet were still there, and that it was only the surrounding rooftops that were additionally protected with more archers.

As he made his way towards the steps that led to the hospital entrance, he spotted groups of monks gathered about, waiting for something. A good lot of them wore white, but there were also men in black robes, brown robes, and gray robes, it seemed like every order of monk had interest in the hospital. The gates of the hospital's courtyard were open already, mulling past them were some of the patients. To Altair they looked like a sorry lot, malnourished, clad in rags, and as they shambled about as if drunk. As he watched them closely, be began to form the opinion that most had taken leave of their senses and sanity. He thought of the opium that had been on order in the letters, were these the victims? It seemed that way, a lot of them looked miserable, half mad with pain and mumbling to themselves as if still hallucinating. What bothered Altair the most is that there were women among the sordid group, young women who should have been with their families, gossiping in bathhouses over tea, enjoying their youth. The guards standing at the gate of the inner sanctum watched the patients as they clutched their weapons; their caution of the patients was unusual and their expressions bordered on distaste and dislike.

Footsteps on the stairs behind him told him that the monks had decided to move, he let them pass around him, becoming absorbed in their midst as he followed them past the guards into the inner courtyard. There were more monks and scholars there, wearing various shades of brown, black, grays, and beige robes. They circled like vultures around the few patients, and the longer Altair stood there, the less he liked the atmosphere. He became certain that this was not a place of healing; it was a place of misery and pain.

Suddenly there was an shout coming from one of the side doors leading to the ward; Altair's keen instincts took over as he turned to the source of the disturbance, all the muscles in his body tensing in expectation of an attack. A patient ran in from one of the side doors, clad only in white linen pants, barefoot, he ran from scholar to scholar, grabbing their arms, seeking.

"Help me! Please! Someone help me!" the man shouted in a frenzied urgency. Altair found himself stepping back, letting the shadows of the walls consume and mask him as the panicked patient ran about. The guards had heard the commotion and entered the yard, instantly making a line for the patient and grabbing him by the arms.

The man struggled, his eyes wide with sheer terror and were it not for the importance of his mission, Altair found himself thinking that he would've done something to aid the man. Even in the grip of madness, men had knowledge of danger; this man was clearly panicked for a reason.

The central wooden doors opened with a heavy creak and Altair turned at the sound, it was then he spotted his target. Garnier de Naplouse entered the yard, clad in the almost black robes of the Hospitaller monks, blazoned with their white cross. The apron he wore was conspicuously stained with blood, and at his side hung a sword, and some of his instruments of torture, disguised as tools of healing. Behind him were three more guards, all of them clutching at the hilts of their swords. The sight of the caution on the faces of the guards didn't elude Altair; his instincts told him that they knew there was an assassin in town. It did not matter in the long run, but he'd have to choose his moment to strike carefully. Now wasn't it, there were too many people in too small a space, the panic would make getting out too difficult. Given that Garnier also carried his own weapon meant that heed have to time the strike to come from behind, and as surprising as possible, before the man had a chance to draw the sword from its sheath.

"Enough of this, child. As for you two, your job is to control them, not kill them!" Garnier commanded. The two guards who held the man eased their grips, but not enough to let the struggling man escape. Garnier approached the man and spoke to him in a lowered tone, but the man's struggling only got more frantic.

"No! Do not touch me! Not again!" he cried frantically.

"Cast out this fear, else I can't help you."

"Help me, like you helped all the others?" The patient exclaimed, still struggling. "You took their souls! I saw! I saw! But not mine! No! You won't have mine!"

Garnier backhanded the man across the face for his outburst, "Take hold of yourself! Do you think this gives me pleasure? Do you think I want to hurt you? But you leave me no choice!"

The prisoner pulled one arm free from the restraints of the two guards, instantly trying to pull himself free from the other as he struggled for the open doorway. Seeing as he couldn't he addressed the gathered crowd, "Every kind word- matched with the back of his hand! All lies and deception!" he shouted. "He won't be content until all bow before him!"

Garnier stepped back, the kindly façade vanishing from his face, "You shouldn't have done that." He stated as he turned back guards behind him, "Return him to his quarters! I'll be along once I've tended to the others."

"You can't keep me here, I'll escape again!" the patient shouted.

Garnier stopped in the doorframe of the main ward and glanced back, "No. you won't." then his gaze shifted to the guards, "break his legs- both of them."

The patient struggled, but ultimately in vain as the four guards muscled him around. The crack of bone breaking was drowned by the man's scream of pain as the guard broke the first appendage, and the second followed.

"I am sorry, my child." Garnier stated as the two guards from the doorway dragged the man back inside the ward by the shoulders and arms, his now broken and limp legs dragging on the floor as he continued to whimper in agony. Then the grand master turned to the people gathered in the inner courtyard, "Have you people nothing better to do?" he called.

A wave of whispering passed among the scholars, but in the face of the man, they began to scatter as if they had not just witnessed that. Altair hovered in the shadows, watching as the elderly Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller vanished inside the main ward. The main wooden doors were closed behind him as he did.

Acting the part of a shocked scholar, Altair drifted into the main ward from the side door closest to him. The man would never walk straight again after both his legs had been so brutally broken, he'd be lucky to limp without the aid of a cane. If the opium incident had been unproven before, this was ample proof. The patient had spoken of taken souls; to the ignorant and uneducated superstitious person the relaxant effects of high dose would look like that. The victim would be nearly incoherent, unresponsive, uncaring what happened around them, as if soulless. Then when the effects began to wear off, the pain would come, it would explain the suffering he had witnessed in the front yard.

Altair moved past the scholars mulling about the ante-chamber before the entrance to the main ward. His eyes quickly noticed the various guards stationed among the beds, there were fifteen, maybe twenty. He let his mind relax as he stopped calmly in the door frame. It took a moment, but he began to see faint shimmers of red surrounding the guards, revealing their positions. He scanned the room slowly, counting the shimmers, discovering that he was off his assumption by two. There were eighteen guards, a large number. When he blinked the shimmers vanished, restoring his vision to normal.

Falling behind another group of scholars he began to observe the room for the elusive way to the broken window, finding it didn't take long, and tracing a line across the beams and over the chandeliers that hung in the ward took all of thirty seconds. It was then he spotted the scaffolding in the corner, accessible by a ladder it offered a perfect path to the beams. He had his exit route, and now all that remained was to find Garnier and end his life.

His eyes followed the two moving guards; their bulks were easy enough to track as they followed their master. As he stalked his target, pretending to be just another scholar among the many mulling about the ward, he began to feel the familiar sensation of his whole body relaxing, readying itself for what was to come. Rounding a wooden partition wall he spotted Garnier, he was talking to the man whose legs were broken. Despite such a grievous injury, he was still arguing and protesting that he was the wronged one.

Altair stalked closer, drifting without a sound, a predator readying to spring upon the prey. Out of his peripheral vision he spotted one of the guards watching him keenly, but then the man looked away. That mistake will cost everyone today. Time was already slowing down for him as he was entering the familiar trance of perfect clarity. Ahead of him Garnier glanced at the figure he probably saw out of his own peripheral vision. There was instant recognition in the elder man's eyes, but to Altair it all seemed to move too slowly. He was ready, and his instincts told him that now was the time to strike.

Garnier reached of his sword, but it was much too late. Altair moved like an arrow, being maybe a third of the man's age and faster by far, a seemingly endless second passed before he had Garnier by the front of his robes and his hidden blade found home in one of the man's lungs.

"Assassin!" the guard closest to the Grand Master called in alarm. Uproar went around the hospital as the shout stirred the patients. The guards all drew their weapons, rushing towards the scene. However, as aware as he was of the guards, Altair paid attention to the man whose life he had just taken.

"He was right, he knew that-" Garnier wheezed, "you would come."

"Who?" Altair asked as he eased the elder man's body to the ground, reaching for the feather marker which he flicked through the blood welling up from the injury he inflicted.

"Robert." Garnier whispered on his final breath.

"He will join you in time," Altair replied as he straightened, tucking the feather in his pouch and closed it. Without further deliberation he bolted for the ladder. The bells of the adjacent church began to peal in alarm, soon joined by the distant chorus of other town bells.

Altair had to tackle two guards out of his way to get to the ladder, but they had not been expecting it and yielded to him with relative ease. The others followed, but armor slowed them down. He was on and up the ladder before any of them got to it.

"Do not use your bows! You'll hit the patients!" someone shouted.

"What is that fool thinking-"

Altair didn't let the man finish his statement as he vaulted unto the closest beam and pulled himself on to it, and jogged across its length before vaulting unto to the closest chandelier.

"Bloody hell!" another of the guards exclaimed, bringing a grin to the assassin's face as he jumped to the next chandelier. None of the guards were able to follow him; they were utterly hopeless as they watched him make an unobstructed way to the broken window.

"Get that ladder to the window! Now!" another guard ordered.

"The archers will deal with him!" was the last thing Altair heard as he jumped through the window and unto the roof. One scan across and he knew that the archers were on high alert, and he'd have to move quickly. Despite their vigilance, they were yet to notice him; Altair pressed his back to the wall of the hospital's upper level, edging close to the corner of the shielding wall. There were only two archers in his view, and if they hadn't changed their patrols, a window was going to open any second now.

He heard scraping from inside the ward and knew that the ladder had been moved, and then the last archer vanished from view, a window opened. Altair glanced around the corner and seeing the other closest guards were looking the other way he bolted for it, running for the storehouses from which he could get over the wall.

"Stop!" someone behind him shouted, just as Altair vaulted on top of the parapet wall.

"Shoot him!" another shouted.

Altair jumped for it, the storehouse roof was probably fifteen feet below him and the landing jarred his frame, but he stuck to it and ran. There was that archer he had known about, the one patrolling the rooftops of the storehouses, he pulled out a throwing knife from his belt sheathes and let it fly even before the man noticed him. The blade imbedded itself into his kidney, sending the archer toppling. Altair paused in his run only long enough to retrieve the knife before continuing on his way.

Altair ground his teeth as he ran, now that he was mostly safe and on the rooftops, he could think about other things. There was only one thing he wanted to know, how did Robert de Sable know where he was going to strike? It didn't make sense, unless there was a traitor in the bureau, but that was nearly impossible. It could be a guess on the Templar's part, but Altair didn't want to attribute his enemy with that much intelligence. The thought made him realize that he was probably too used to Cassandra's deductions; he was beginning to think that everyone around him had the same bizarre habit, and the same proficiency with it. Ultimately even if Garnier knew that he was coming, had been warned by Robert, the man didn't take enough precautions to stay alive. The guess theory sounded more and more plausible by the minute, Robert had to have been guessing and the Hospitaller had not taken the warning seriously.

Then a thought occurred to him, he remembered the vellum letters; they had to be the link. The one they had gotten off the Templars at the well had been signed with an R; it had to have come from Robert himself, written by a scribe, a female one at that if Cassandra was right. The one he had stolen from the messenger boy had been sighed with a G, originating undoubtedly from Garnier. Tamir fit into the picture somehow, and there was a fourth man to whom the first vellum letter had been addressed to.

Was he being sent to assassinate men that Robert de Sable associated with in preparation for an attempt on the Templar's life? If Robert had thought so himself, it would explain why he would warn Garnier of the danger, but clearly the warning was still to ineffectual. Furthermore, thinking of the vellum letters, he knew that his task was not to be completed any time soon. There were other pieces connected to this bizarre chain, the first letter had been addressed to someone in Damascus, and the last spoke of someone named George that had been supplying information. There was just something about the name George that sounded so vaguely familiar, like he had heard the name mentioned before by the Templars, but when and where eluded him right at that moment.

"You! Stop!" a voice shouted, jarring Altair from his mid-run contemplations. He stopped and turned around in time to see an archer raise his bow. It was on reflect that he dodged the arrow, fully expecting it and knowing where it would fly. The archer didn't get the time to use another as he was dead a second later, a knife protruding from his neck.

Altair retrieved the knife and paused on the edge of the roof to appraise the situation on the streets. The bureau was still some distance away, but the presence of guards in this part of town was particularly thick. Richard's men seemed disorganized and disoriented, as if they didn't know exactly what they were doing, but they were keen on doing something. He smirked, and continued to the bureau.

The rattle of armor on the streets made him curious and he stopped briefly to peer over the edge, spotting a pair of Templars rushing towards their quarter, Altair decided they were probably messengers. He would've loved to see the look on Robert de Sable's face the second he discovered that despite his helpful warning, Garnier was dead. He wanted to see the arrogant Frank lose his haughty attitude as his temper boiled.

~*~*~*~

Sandy was on pins and needles as soon as the alarm bells began to peal. She tried to sit stock-still among the pillows, quieter than a mouse, because she would've preferred if the rafiq forgot she was even there, but it was proving to be difficult. She knew the odds of that were slim that the rafiq would forget about her anyways, but a girl could hope, right?

A shuffle from inside the bureau told her that she hadn't been forgotten; a second later the rafiq appeared in the doorway, glaring at her. Sandy sat up straight and tried to imitate Altair's self assured posture, but failed miserably and wilted when the rafiq's glare got worse.

"Do you intend to sit there all day?" he asked.

"I stay put when Altair is out on a job. His orders."

"In other words, you're useless for anything other than petty bits of information."

Sandy bit her tongue from snapping back something; instead she put a smile on her face and tried not to hiss. "Isn't that what being an _informant _is all about? Altair knows that the _petty bits of information_ I get for him are always useful in some way or another, that's enough for him. He does not want or need someone to help him kill; he is the best assassin of Masyaf."

"Insolent girl," the rafiq stated.

"I understand it is common practice to belittle women these days, but I will not have it. You cannot intimidate me just because I am a woman. Ultimately the master gave me the mantle of informant because he saw something in my talents. If he chooses to give me the chance and allows me to travel with Altair then it must mean he acknowledges my usefulness in whichever form it comes."

"Don't think that cloak gives you standing girl."

"Then with all due respect sir, I will add that even if you outrank me, the master outranks you, and his authority is- by what I understand absolute."

The rafiq took a step back and Sandy smirked, knowing that she had just scored a point. If the rafiq thought he could toss his weight around because he was a man of high rank, he was bothering the wrong girl. She could play the rank game as much as everyone else, she would remind the man that her position was bequeathed to her by someone who outranked him, so he had no right to question it and her uses.

In that moment of silence, Altair arrived, landing in the yard in a crouch. Sandy smiled and got to her feet, "Welcome back," she chorused.

He straightened and adjusted his hood, glancing at her with a faint nod of his head. Sandy smiled even wider, but then the expression faltered when she remember the rafiq.

"Garnier is dead," Altair stated, pulling out the bloodied feather from his pouch.

"Excellent," the rafiq stated. "Now you can tell your _faithful servant_ to mind her tongue." With that said the elder man left the yard, re-entering the bureau proper. Altair leveled a chilled look on her and Sandy squirmed a little.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Nothing. He questioned my 'usefulness' to you, and let's just say- I replied as it is. It's none of his business to be questioning that."

"While you're mostly right, you need to show more respect for his position."

"The day he shows respect for my gender," Sandy replied gruffly. "I do show respect when it's shown to me, you know. I have no problems with the rafiq of Damascus, or Malik, because they gave me a fair chance. In fact while you were off killing Tamir, I got entertained with some very interesting stories."

"Don't go antagonizing him further," Altair said.

"I won't, I promise. Come, sit down- relax." She offered, easing herself into a sitting position among the pillows. Choosing her favorite of the pile she plopped it into her lap and squeezed it like a teddy bear. "You can tell me how the job went. I'm kind of curious, I mean- how the hell do you get in and out of a hospital to shank the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller?"

"Getting in was easy enough," Altair replied as he reached for his side to remove the sword. "Getting out involved skill."

"I want to hear the details, I'm sure it's a story worth adding to Scheherazade's other one thousand." From her angle and position she could see Altair's eyebrows rise in mild surprise, she smirked.

"Starting your own collection?" he asked.

"Why not? I'm sure your tales would be worth an epic or two, someone has to collect them."

"Maybe some other time, there are other things that you need to know. Robert knew. He warned Garnier." Altair replied as he set his sword against the wall next to him before he eased himself into a sitting position on the carpet, resting his left forearm on a raised knee.

"Robert? As in our _Friendly Neighborhood Templar_ Robert?"

"I wouldn't use the word _friendly_, but yes."

"Sarcasm is lost on thee. I know he's about as friendly as a rabid dog, but let's leave it at that." Sandy paused as she contemplated this information. "Templars and Hospitallers actually working together- there's a scary thought, if I didn't know better I'd call that a sign of the Apocalypse. I mean they never got along before, did they? By what I know of history, those three orders with the Teutonics… infighting was a sport when they didn't have other people to fight and a policy when they did."

"Garnier didn't take the warning all that seriously. There were guards, but not enough to stop me."

"Then maybe they're not working together. He probably thought that the Templar was sticking his nose in none of his business. Hell wouldn't put it past someone like Robert; guy has arrogance coming off him in waves." Sandy theorized, scratching at the back of her head. "Did you find out anything about the drugs?"

"Garnier _was_ using Opium on his patients."

"You did the world a great service by killing him then, those kinds of men- they can't be stopped with reason and diplomacy." The silence lasted between them in which Sandy put her back to the wall and stared at the sky through the latticework of the yard's roof. "Gosh I'll be glad to be back at Masyaf." She murmured.

"You're wrong saying there is no connection because of this strange cooperation, the vellum letters are the connection. Everyone else would think the same if they were told that the two orders work together, it's a clever ruse. There are at least two more people involved; the man to whom the first vellum letter was addressed and this mysterious source of information, George."

"George is dead, so we won't get anything from him, even figuring out how he fits in is going to be tricky. Dead men tell no tales after all." Sandy turned to look at Altair and noticed his stock-still position, his shoulders raised and his lips set into a narrow line. "What's wrong?"

"I just remembered where I heard the name before."

"Where?" Sandy wondered.

"Four months ago, the incident- the man I killed. His name was George."

Sandy blinked and it took maybe a few seconds too long to click in her head, four months, the incident, Altair had killed this man? _Talk about a small world_, she thought to herself. "What happened?" she asked.

"The master sent me, Malik, and Kadar to kill a man that the Templars had secreted in Jerusalem. I found him without a problem. He tried to buy his life, kept insisting that he had a position now-"

Sandy nodded, but she knew that he had omitted the part about how Kadar got killed, and how Malik sustained his injury, but she wasn't going to pry into all that now. That was one story that she wouldn't want to add to any sort of collection, Malik deserved that much. Furthermore, it was irrelevant at that moment, what was interesting was this man Altair had killed.

"What sort of position?" Sandy wondered.

"He said something about the Templars helping him buy a title, it sounded to me like the ravings of a mad-man. Now-" he paused.

"It would make sense. If he had been supplying anything useful to the Templars. Buying him a title would be pretty cheap. These are the knights Templar we're talking about, the bankers of Europe, they have so much money in all their various branches that they can afford to buy one guy a barony or something. George would be happy, they're happy, the world _should_ be happy, but I'm pretty sure it'd be screwed instead. What remains to answer is what sort of information he had."

"We will never know, unless you ask the Templars," Altair replied.

"Yea, good idea! Here, let me- I'll just go find Robert right now and ask." Sandy threw up her hands and waved them as if to show exactly what she thought of the whole plan. "There has to be another way. No matter how difficult the mystery is, nothing is ever unsolvable with the right evidence." Altair remained silent, and Sandy couldn't help but watch him closely. She decided that there was something else on his mind, but this was something he wouldn't tell her unless he was properly baited and put into a corner. "Now about that story?" she wondered.

Altair turned his head to look at her and gave her a cross little look that told her that he would rather keep his story to himself, kind of like a magician kept his tricks. She smiled and put her hand on his arm, leaning closer. "You really want to hear it?" he asked.

"Sure."

He grinned, Sandy poked his side, and through he probably didn't feel a thing through the leather of his belt. But before he could begin, there was a scuffle of feet on the stone floors, Sandy turned her head to the doorway, but the sound of the rafiq's footsteps tracked deeper into the house. "That's the servant woman," Altair stated.

"And that means food," Sandy concurred.

"You're hungry?" he wondered, getting to his feet.

"I wouldn't have eaten without you, you know. It's just a matter of- I just don't feel comfortable." Sandy followed him inside, blending into his shadow as she walked.

"I thought it was the master alone that you feared like that," he noted.

"With good reason," Sandy replied.

"And what's the reason here?"

"Some of the looks he gives me, they're like he can kill me in my sleep and knows it."

"So can I," Altair stated.

Sandy touched his arm as they stopped at the doorway of the kitchen, "_should_ I be afraid?"

"No," he replied, shrugging her hand on his arm.

"Thought so."

The half conversation drew looks from the two occupants in the room, Sandy just smiled as if she was innocent of all wrong-doing. "Don't think you're off the hook with that story." She added in a lowered, sing-song tone.

~*~*~*~

The city's alarm bells had stilled an hour before, and it took frustratingly that long to discover what had set them off in the first place. It was naturally her duty as the steward to relay this sort of message from the lowly grunt messengers to Robert in person. So it was that Maria found herself making her way to the Grand Master's keep, knowing that he would be in a bad temper after hearing this. Fortunately, he never took out his temper on her.

Her footsteps echoed on flagstones flooring of the corridor as she walked in an urgent pace. Very few of the guards at the random turns bothered to pay attention to the lowly steward boy that she was supposed to be. She arrived at the heavy wooden door that led to the main study and paused for a second before knocking.

She silently counted to five before opening the door and slipping inside. The door was heavy and she closed it before leaning her back on it. Robert was seated at a desk, for once out of his armor, and so busy pouring over a large stack of papers that he didn't even look up to acknowledge her.

"I assume you know what the alarm was all about." He stated calmly, quill quivering as he signed one more of the many parchments that were littering his desk.

Maria reached up to the chin strap holding her masked helmet in place; she slipped it off so she could speak freely. "The assassin made his strike."

"Who?" Robert asked, looking up.

"Garnier is dead, and the assassin got away. By what I was told, no one noticed him come in, but everyone saw him leave."

"Garnier's men are more incompetent than I thought."

Maria pushed off the door and tucked her helmet under her arm as she approached the desk. "They're Hospitallers." She commented with a dismissive tone in her words as she perched on the empty corner of his desk. She knew she was pushing the limit, but pushing the limits of what she could get away with was a hobby of hers. "Should I order the men to search the town? He's bound to be hiding somewhere."

Robert looked up from his work and all of a second he gave her a glare that had made her quake. Both under its sheer intensity and just how beautiful his eyes were, he was an attractive man in general. There was something to be said about a man who was that tall and had the sort of presence that Robert managed to have effortlessly. Then the silence lingered for a long moment and she couldn't help but grin faintly in self-satisfaction. _No order to get off the desk?_ _I'll have to remember this new limit._

"I'm not wasting men. If they find that assassin, all we'll have on our hands are corpses," he stated, going back to his work.

Maria sighed, he was right of course. The assassins were ruthlessly strong, but that particular one was even more so. She had seen the man at work in May; they had lost not only George that day, but also a number of good men, all to the hands of that one. Killing one of them and injuring another did not equate to the losses they had suffered in turn. "If only we knew where their safe house was," she mused.

"I would have ordered the place burned to the ground long ago," Robert replied flippantly.

Maria chuckled; she would've loved to be the one to pitch the first burning branch. The sound of her amusement drew his attention again and Maria stopped the sound before she got his glare again. She could fake a man's voice well enough when barking orders, but he had told her that laughter exposed her. "Perhaps-" she began. "I should go and take another bath tonight, maybe luck will be on my side and I will meet the fallen again. Perhaps I can trail her afterward. The assassin is bound to be tired, not as vigilant."

"His vigilance will be not letting her out of his sight," Robert replied.

"I do not like sitting by and doing nothing!" Maria voiced, but when he looked up, suddenly she realized what she had just said. She saw the mischief in his blue eyes and instantly knew what was coming after that kind of comment. He raised his left hand and motioned to the stack of books on the table. Maria sighed and pushed off the table to her feet, "I'll put them back." Setting her helmet on the empty chair in front of his desk she circled the table and picked up the heavy stack of books.

"When you're done with that, I want you to compose a letter to our man in Jerusalem. Garnier won't need any more- _supplies_."

"Do you want me to order him to do something else?" Maria asked as she set the books on the other table across the room to sort them out before she returned them to their place. When she didn't get a reply she glanced back over her shoulder and noticed that Robert had leaned back into his chair and his quill was back on its holder, he was watching her. "What? It was a good question."

"Too good, Maria. I do not see what other use we have for him now that Garnier is dead."

"Well, no use wasting potential either. If we ever need anyone abducted in Jerusalem, it's certainly his specialty." She picked up the first book off the stack and read the spine before moving to the shelves to slip it back into its proper empty spot.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Red Glows: That's my interpretation of Altair's Eagle Vision.

The Term 'Frank': This was the period-proper way to call a Frenchman, especially one of obvious semi-noble status. At the time a lot of them claimed descent from Charlemagne who had been king of the Franks. And if that's not interesting enough, according to my source during the crusades, the term 'frank' was used as ethnonym to describe crusaders in general.

**Director's Notes:**

Well I want to apologize for bouncing this chapter, I had a quiz on the last Monday, a semi-important one, and I needed not only to catch up on my readings, but also study because the week previous had been all about assignments due on the same week. It was a very stressful week that not only put me behind schedule, but also into writer's block. I had to bounce the chapter; I didn't want to publish anything that was less than 100% what I wanted to put up.

Before anyone asks about the final scene, those _are_ hints of Robert/Maria. I have watched the play-through videos of Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, and there was enough in the subtext for me to justify it. Besides, I think they're kind of cute- in a tragic, Jack & Rose (Titanic) sort of way, except with better character development, but you get the idea.

And on a final note, I want to thank all my fans for once again shattering another view record for a single day. According to my statistics, Monday 23rd, 410 hits, 117 unique! Thank you! Thank you!


	23. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**

* * *

Chapter XXIII:**__ A Midsummer Night's Dream_

Altair and Sandy set out bright and early the next morning, under Sandy's urgings. She didn't like Akka, and she wanted to leave as soon as possible. The streets were busy, there were still guards mulling about, but they had no trouble navigating past them. Sandy discovered that despite Altair being a master of being invisible in a crowd, her own additions didn't hurt either. The guards paid even less attention if she lowered her hood, wrapped her arms around one of his and walked leaning on him with a smile on her face. After the third group that averted their gazes Altair also stopped trying to shrug her off.

They retrieved their horses from the stables, and Altair looked less than pleased when he discovered that Talimar had not been brushed once since he arrived in town. The horses were fed and watered, but other than that they were kept without additional care. The dust showed in Talimar's normally snowy-white coat more readily than in Nyx's dark chocolate, but even the mare lacked the normal luster she had when she stayed in Masyaf.

Departure was delayed by the early morning caravans departing for other cities, each of them loaded with various merchandise from different places. Getting past the city's gates proved to be half the battle as then they had to weave their way past the remnants of the war camp as well. The couple of days that she had spent in the walls had dulled her memories of the carnage, but only made the smell undeniably worse.

She urged Nyx foreword to catch up with her companion who was once again in the lead. "Altair, can we hurry a little? The smell will make me throw up."

"Breathe through your mouth," he called back.

"What do you think I've been doing?" With the jab slung across, she cupped her nose and mouth with the material of her sleeve and tried to keep her breakfast down. She let Nyx fall behind again, returning to the single file formation they preferred on their rides.

By the time they reached clear air, Sandy had been busy humming to herself to keep her diaphragm from seizing up and triggering the heaving and gagging. It was a very old trick that you couldn't puke while you were humming because the act of humming kept the heaving down, she was glad for that simple remedy. Once in the clear she gulped down the air like it was food, trying to purge the foul smell from her nostrils.

That night they camped in the highlands, the food rations they were able to receive in Akka were unusually paltry and left Sandy seemingly hungrier after eating them than before. The rest of the journey to Masyaf went much the same way, but with each hour her mood perked at the prospect of the delicacies served from Masyaf's kitchens. The food was always simple, recipes chosen for their ease of preparation in masse, but she couldn't deny the fact that girls could make anything taste good.

As soon as they dismounted, Altair was already ordering the horses brushed and washed and the stable attendants looked too frightened to refuse the orders. Sandy smiled apologetically at them and it seemed to make some difference, but she was sure that they would've preferred not getting a snap for something they didn't do. What could she do? The fact that the keepers in Akka had seemingly neglected their horses did not sit all that well with her as well; she liked Nyx and knew that horses needed regular grooming to remain healthy.

Altair left her behind as he made his way to the fortress at a hurried pace. Sandy didn't feel the need to see the master, so she took her time getting to the fortress. Past the gates she began to contemplate what to do until dinner, which likely wouldn't be for another hour or so. Some of part of her wanted to go and find Tony and tell him that she was back. She was honestly surprised that he didn't come to the arches on Rayo to meet them. Then she decided that maybe he was busy, and that leaving him alone might not be a bad idea then.

Passing by the training ground she noticed the youngest trainees who were getting drilled, they seemed to pause as she passed by, their eyes following her. She smiled and waved her hand, which sent the boys scurrying back into their practice. She spotted a pair of the other elites mulling about, there were ten or so that she saw regularly at the dinner table besides Tony and Altair. She didn't pay much attention to them because they never seemed to talk to anyone but among themselves, the elites of Masyaf were decidedly a haughty bunch, that or simply distant from the rest of humanity in general.

Then she remembered the order at the leatherworks that she had placed before leaving for Akka. Suddenly she had something to do, they should be done by now. She made a quick journey to the bowels of the castle where the leatherworks were. Once there she opened the door and stepped inside, "Excuse me."

The man in charge of the workshop looked up from the apprentice he was drilling and smiled, "Oh, it's you. You've been busy the last couple days?"

"I just returned from Akka with Altair," Sandy replied.

"Busy indeed it seems. I have your things right here." The man moved to the shelves lining one of the walls of the chamber and bending down to inspect the lower shelves he pulled out a pair of braces. "Since you did not return for a couple of days, I decided to improve on the design you asked for."

"Thank you," Sandy took the braces from his hands and inspected them.

"I added the metal to the top here so you can feel safe enough to block knives with the backs of your arms. I would not block swords though; the metal is not thick enough."

"I rarely block, I dodge. It's a more certain tactic."

"Of course." The man nodded his head.

Sandy undid the buckles that cinched the thing to her arms; there were three, one on each end, and one at the middle. The slot for her knives was over the wrist strap, but under the other two so her knives would be secure in their slots. She pulled the braces on and tightened them, the leather felt rough, but she knew it would grow suppler with wear.

"How's the fit?" the man asked.

"Perfect, not too loose, not to tight." She reached behind her back and pulled out her knives, slotting them into their holds on the guards. Taking a few steps back she let the sleeves of her cloak fall to conceal the braces, the weight was unfamiliar, but comforting. She put her hands up the opposite sleeve, thumbing the knives, "Can I try to draw?"

"Do. I want to be sure the slots allow your blades to emerge smoothly."

She smiled and slid her hands over the inside of her forearms in her sleeves. Then gripping the knives with deft fingers she jerked her arms out, the knives came along, settling into her palms, simultaneously disengaging the sliding safety knob on the handles. With the release depressed against the palm, the kriss blades sprung with a loud double simultaneous _kra-ching_, already in reverse position and ready to draw blood.

"You are set." The man stated.

Sandy rolled the blades into a foreword grip, jerking the releases and simultaneously folding away the blades, "I don't pity the next knight who decides to grab me." She smiled. "Thank you."

"You are most welcome."

Sandy slipped the blades back into her braces, resetting them for the next time she'd need to draw.

"Come again if there is something else you need."

She nodded her head, smiled, and left, suddenly in much a better mood than before. Hiking up one sleeve she began to admire the designs stamped into the thin metal that would protect her arms against knife slash wounds. It was very similar to what Altair had on his braces, but not as intricate, still the metal was polished and the design was contrasted with an application of patina.

She made a quick way back to the first level of the fortress, practically skipping as she went. The din of conversation coming from the dining hall drew her, and she made a bee line towards it. There she spotted Antonio, seated at his customary spot. On her way to her own spot she passed her hand over his shoulder, drawing his attention.

"Ah _senorita_, welcome back." He greeted.

"Thank you Tony," she replied with a smile as she sat down next to him. "I assume it was the master's orders that you didn't come to the arches, right?" she wondered.

"I'm afraid so, I was a little out of line."

"Don't worry about it, all's good." She patted his arm in a friendly way and the elite smiled in response.

"I wish things were a little bit different, my lady."

"How so?" Sandy wondered.

"I have found myself wishing that it were me that you had met upon arrival to the Holy Land, perhaps things would have been different then."

"They probably wouldn't be. I'm sorry Tony, but- I can't have a relationship of any sort with any man. It's not just about rules, it's more than that." Sandy shook her head. It was sweet that Antonio still seemed to pine after her, it was oddly cute, and romantic, and would've sent any lesser woman absolutely fawning with adoration. The girls back at school would've called her absolutely crazy for not 'dating' this sweet man. If they didn't know about the whole assassin thing that is, and maybe the age gap, though some might even see that as romantic.

Problem remained that when she was with Tony, he made her smile, he made her laugh, and she sometimes wanted to hug him at random simply because she was in a good mood. All that was just an expression of friendship and perfectly acceptable as far as she was concerned, but it wasn't what he would want. He clearly cared deeper and despite the boundaries between them, he kept his heart open to her. It was easily the tenderest thing anyone had ever done for her, but she didn't want to lead him on. She wasn't callous enough to promise him things that she probably would never be able to give. She simply did not feel that way for him, and he deserved someone who would appreciate him for him.

For Sandy, there was only one man in the whole fortress of Masyaf, and probably the whole of the twelfth century that could make her blush, only one person who could make her happier with his silent presence alone. Maybe it was a touch of Stockholm syndrome, but she knew that the friendship she had with Altair was one in a million. As unique and precious as a diamond and she hoped just as strong, but she knew it was brittle as well. All it would take would be one hard blow to shatter it to dust, and she did not want that blow to come from her own hand as a form of some stupid teenage urge. It was out of these considerations that she kept her crush on the arrogant assassin under a lock and key in the back of her psyche.

"Will you ever tell me this reason?" Antonio wondered.

"You probably wouldn't believe me," she looked down at her as of yet empty plate. Food wasn't coming for another little while, so maybe it was a good time to tell Antonio the truth. Maybe if he knew she was from another time, it would be easier on both of them to move on. "Were it only that I came to the Holy Land," she began.

"What do you mean by that?" Antonio wondered.

"I want to tell you the secret, the one thing only three other people know. Understand this Tony; this is how it must remain."

He sat up straight, watching her with a pair of keen dark eyes, as if testing whether or not she was going to start pulling his leg at that moment.

"Didn't you wonder why my clothing is so strange?" Sandy asked.

"A little."

"It's because I'm not from this time. I belong in the year two thousand and nine. Eight hundred and eighteen years from now." She whispered.

Silence reigned as Tony sat there, his jaw loosened ever so slightly. Sandy looked over the hall, "It's not a lie. So far you're person number four who knows, after Altair, Malik, and the Master."

"I'm honored you would trust me, my lady."

Sandy turned to look at him again, "Antonio, please understand what I mean when I say I'm not supposed to be a prize to be won. I'm trying to have as little impact on this time as I can. If that must mean I am to live like a nun, then so be it."

"It is a heavy burden to bear alone."

"But I'm not alone, I have friends who support me, but that's all I'm allowed to have. The knowledge I have and the right usage of it, they are my cross to bear as long as I live here."

"At the cost of your own happiness."

"If I must."

"But what if this is God's design for you? What if you were meant to be in this time?"

Sandy looked out unto the hall again; Antonio stirred something with his question. What if he was right? She wasn't certain if there was a God, and if there was, this seemed like something excessively cruel to do to someone. Still, what if this was just destiny? Even that didn't settle well with her, she didn't want to believe that her fate was decided by someone or something other than her. "I don't think so Tony, I'm just a girl. What can I do?"

"Something tells me you don't really want an answer to that question."

Sandy chuckled, "You're right," she glanced at him but then noticed that Altair had just stepped into the grand hall, instantly she knew she had to nix the conversation before it somehow got out of hand. "We'll talk about it later; it is not a topic to talk about on an empty stomach."

"I understand," Antonio nodded his head.

~*~*~*~

He ate dinner in silence, ignoring the chattering of the Spaniard and Sandy after she had asked him about the progress of Faisal's training. Altair couldn't figure out why the woman was so interested in the novice. Still, if it amused her, what she did with these times was her decision. The tea was going around a third time when Sandy excused herself and left the hall, leaving the seat between the two elite assassins empty, and the wall preventing their own conversation removed.

"Get it over with, Spaniard. What did she tell you this time?"

"You were waiting to demand that, weren't you?" Antonio replied. "Alright then. She told me the truth; I know she traveled for a very long _time_,"

Altair understood the meaning of the man's words, Cassandra had told him of her secret finally? That put them on slightly more even footing, but only slightly. "You still intend to pursue her?"

"No. I know when I have been defeated."

The reply surprised Altair, but he concealed the emotion well enough as he drained his last cup of tea.

"A man needs to know when his cause is hopeless. I know she only told me the secret so that I would stop my pursuit, I must honor her wishes. But you-"

"There is nothing between us," Altair stated.

"- are quick to go on the defensive it seems."

Altair spared the Spaniard a vicious glare as a reply. If he hadn't started this line of questioning, he would've left, but as he had started it, he felt obliged to finish it too.

"She thinks that her presence will somehow cause problems, she is willing to go through her whole life here living as a nun, her words Altair, not mine. That worries me, and if there is anyone who can pull her out of those delusions-"

"It's her life, let her live it as she sees it fit." Altair stated. Nevertheless, he found Antonio's line of reasoning bothersome, the Spaniard could not possibly be suggesting what Altair thought he was suggesting.

"Even if she's unhappy?" Antonio asked.

"Know this Spaniard, she will not be controlled or swayed. I am willing to let her make her own decisions and mistakes, and that is why she and I have an understanding. Women of her time seem to be more independent and free of the wills of men, and you have to understand that it is what she is used to. Your shortcoming is entirely in the many times you tried to do something for her, and yet each and every time you tried to control an aspect of her nature."

"Since when have you become an expert on women?" Antonio wondered.

"Since you have become utterly inept." With that said, Altair got to his feet and exited the grand hall; he figured that he had said enough to leave Antonio with something to think about. Part of him was glad that the Spaniard seemed incapable of understanding Cassandra on the base level; it meant that he would always be a step behind.

Cassandra valued her independence to a great extend, if she was willing to speak up to the rafiq of Akka to defend her perceived right, then who was he to tell her otherwise? Her independence and free will were two qualities that made her a good companion to him. She was not dependant on him, but she respected his experience and knowledge. She was friendly and sweet, but knew when her attention was not necessary or desired. Foremost her spunk and vivacious attitude were refreshing and unique, a part of her natural charm along with her intelligence, and Altair would not like to see that spirit of hers diminished by the discipline of others.

~*~*~*~

Sandy took a bath after dinner, to get rid of the road's grime and sweat. Her hair was still wet as she stood at the farthest reaches of the garden behind the fortress; her white cloak which made her conspicuous in the moonlight was left behind in favor of her more concealing leather jacket. She had her headphones on, and was listening to music as she admired the stars. This was her spot for stargazing in Masyaf, she never did it from Altair's quarters, no one except the Master knew that she was sharing sleeping quarters with Altair, and after weeks of getting away with it, she decided to go for a world record.

The talk with Antonio left her a little confused. She wanted to think that she was doing the right thing in trying to keep her influence in this time to the barest of minimums, but in the baths she had come to the conclusion that maybe there was no point. She was already here, already causing influence. For all she knew, Antonio should have already been sweet on one of the girls in the kitchens or something.

She clutched at the stone railing on the edge of the garden, wondering what she was going to do. Would becoming a nun work? Or must she become a hermit as well? She didn't think she'd be able to live a hermetic lifestyle, all alone for the next thirty or forty years, or however long it would take her to die in this time. She did not want to sequester herself in a cloister either. She wanted to be selfish; to say screw it to the universe and seek her happiness, but still there was the chaos theory to think about. What kind of hurricane would the fluttering of her wings cause, and where?

In the silent break between songs on her cell phone she thought she heard a scoff on the stone floors behind her, Sandy turned around, pulling out one of her headphones from her ear, "is there something you needed?" she asked.

In the moonlight, the material of his tunics glowed, and the shadow of his hood was abysmal, yet she could see those warm honey brown eyes. "I was wondering how long you were going to stand there."

Sandy shut the music off and coiled her headphones around the device before slipping it back into her pocket. "Until I have my answer if I have to." She tried to brush off the suggestion that he had been watching her for any duration of time, there was little to be done about it. He was an assassin, a master of sneaking up on people, and she had been listening to music. It could've been worse.

"What's the question?" he asked, jarring her thoughts.

Sandy paced a few steps in front of the railing before settling down and turning her back to Altair so she could stare out unto the land. "It's something Tony said, it made me think."

"You should mind less what Antonio says, he does not know what he speaks of."

Sandy shook her head and tried not to shy away as Altair stood beside her next to the railing, his right hand resting on the stone railing. "He didn't say anything like that. He just made me think. Guess I'm just struggling with the chaos theory again."

"You put too much into what is just a theory," Altair stated.

"A good theory that makes sense," Sandy replied.

Altair remained silent, and Sandy returned to staring out into space. They remained like that for a long moment before she decided that maybe there was a reason he was still there. "You don't have to stay here, I'm not about to do something stupid." As the silence lingered she found her own words funny and chuckled, "Well okay… depending on the definition of _stupid_."

"If there is something bothering you, it never stopped you from voicing it before," Altair stated.

Sandy gave him a surprised look, Altair was watching her from the shadow of his hood and she decided that maybe it was his way of saying he was there for her. He was paying attention, and not brushing her off like he did sometimes; it had to be a good sign. She placed her hand on his arm and glanced away. "Thank you, but this is different. This is something I have to figure out on my own." She turned away and stared out over the landscape. She wanted to be selfish, to say screw it to the world, after all, if she never found a way back to the twenty-first century, she would never know the consequences of her actions, why did it matter? Perhaps the changes wouldn't be bad either; it was science fiction's fault that the changes people always wrought during time travel resulted in a tyrant, a dystopia, or the apocalypse. Did it really have to be like that? Maybe if she was just a little selfish, things would work out alright. "I guess I've been kinda thinking about this for a little while now, maybe I should just come out and say it."

"You're talking in riddles again."

Sandy laughed and glanced at him, catching his gaze. "That's something I'm very good at." She murmured. "But mostly I just wanted to say that, well- I guess I'm kind of scared of everything. The changes within me, as well as any chaos I'm causing here. My feelings are changing-"

"You're adapting."

"Yes. The speed of that adaptation scares me the most, Altair. Then there is also you-" she stopped cold, unsure if she should finish that thought, and how to best go about it. She turned to face him and put her hands on his forearms. The shift of position brought them closer, and she had to quell the nervous sensation fluttering in her stomach. She didn't know why people called it butterflies; it felt more like a case of indigestion to her. She decided that it was too late to be running; she had to throw in all her chips and lay down the cards. "Almost two months ago you refused to tell me your name," she looked up, meeting his eyes as the words slipped from her lips with remarkable ease, as if they needed to be said. "Today it's like you were _always_ there."

His gaze felt like it was boring holes into her very soul at that moment and Sandy tried to still her nerves, to remain where she was and not run. Then his expression shifted, his eyes lost their intense piercing quality and his lips drew into a smile, not a smirk, but one of his genuinely rare smiles.

Sandy couldn't help but smile back sheepishly, feeling her face heat up with each second. The fire came back, wrapping around her spine and shooting tendrils of flame towards her heart, her stomach still felt a little unwell, but now the sensation was almost pleasant. _God I'm such a teenager, that was so_- her thoughts derailed as his right arm wound itself around her waist, pulling her close to his chest. It took her a moment for the shock to filter through but she found herself resting her head on his shoulder, embracing him back. "Thank you Altair," She whispered.

"I've done nothing," he replied.

Sandy smiled against the material of his cowl and closed her eyes, she'd let him think that as she hugged him. Right at that moment she felt like she could soar. It wasn't the gushing melodramatics of a teenage romance or what she knew of them. This felt more genuine, more authentic, worth so much more. To have this exotically dangerous man accept her as he did, it suddenly meant the world to her. The feeling was so strange, so unfamiliar that she couldn't categorize it as anything more than absolute elation.

His hold tightened as his other arm wound itself around her waist, she became keenly aware of the facts, there they were in the middle of the garden for anyone who happened to pass by to see, and oddly enough she did not care. It was high time that something in life went her way, and she wanted this. She didn't know where it would lead, but somehow it felt that maybe it wouldn't be to the end of the world. Raising her head off his shoulder, her hands slid up his chest between them, "I think I needed that hug," she stated.

"You're not confused anymore?" He asked, practically whispering into her ear.

"No. I think I have it all figured out." _Mostly_, she wanted to add, but decided not to. _Now I just have to figure out when this feeling came to be. What's this between us_, she thought.

"Good."

Sandy pulled away and put her hands back on the cold stone of the balustrade, the contrast between the warmth of his body and the cool stone was sharp and almost unpleasant. She turned back to the stars; but inadvertently her eyes drifted back to him.

"Do you intend to stay here longer?" he asked.

Sandy smiled coyly "Join me?"

Altair stepped closer and his hands rested on her shoulders. As she turned back to the stars, his hands slid down her arms to her waist and then she found herself being pulled back into his embrace as his arms settled around her waist. She tried not to blush when she felt just the faintest hint of his breath on her neck. The height difference between them made it so that she found herself almost cradled between his arms. He didn't speak a word, and words felt unwanted, Sandy knew what this meant. She put her hands on top of his over her stomach, and as they stood there, their fingers intertwined.

The halcyon days ended before they began, the very next morning after breakfast, Altair was summoned to the master's keep and Sandy followed, expecting that he would receive a new job. She hung back behind, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

"You summoned me, master?" Altair began, drawing the man's attention.

"Yes, Altair. I have a job for you, the continuation of your previous task. Your suspicion that Garnier's experimental subjects were abducted was right. A message arrived from Malik yesterday evening, he uncovered the ring of a slave merchant, and it would seem the man had been sending his victims to Akka under the cover of night. Some of them had been abducted off the streets of Jerusalem."

"Give me a name, and I will put an end to his operation."

"The man's name is Talal, and Malik will have more information for you on arrival."

Sandy couldn't help but grin, it had been almost way too long without returning to Jerusalem, with the events of Jamal, and the trips to Damascus and Akka had made it so that she hadn't seen Malik in nearly a month and a half. She liked to think that he was a friend; he had been nice to her when she had last been in town, even going as far as letting her prove herself.

Still, the news that Altair had suspected Garnier of using abduction victims as experimental subjects bothered her. Why didn't Altair tell her? She thought they had a perfectly reasonable share-all thing going, this was a twisted investigation, far in over her head, but she liked to think that she was making progress. It was probably because the guilty parties were not doing their best to cover their tracks, but there was no point looking a gift horse in the mouth. Nevertheless, she'd have to give the arrogant assassin a piece of her mind for that one.

"We will depart in two hours," Altair stated.

"Then you are dismissed."

Sandy bowed her head as Altair nodded, and followed the assassin down the steps from the keep. On the second level she put her hand on his arm and squeezed. "I'm wondering this, Altair. Why didn't I know about your suspicion that Garnier was using abducted people for his experiments?"

"I didn't have proof, but apparently Malik found something," Altair replied.

"Alright, that makes sense, but you know what this means, right?" she wondered.

"We will talk later," Altair shrugged her hand off his arm and continued on his way to his quarters.

Sandy followed, pouting, if he thought she would forget about this, he was sorely mistaken. "Fine then, I won't tell you what I think of the whole thing. I guess I'll just tell Malik, I'm sure he'll find it interesting."

"It's none of his business."

"Wrong!" Sandy rebuffed. "It kind of is. This whole mess with the Templars, Malik has a right to know. You and I both know that there is a connection, and I have a feeling George is at the center of it all. Malik lost his arm and his brother during the same mission you three went to kill George, he has a right to know."

Altair stopped and turned, giving her a cold look that Sandy didn't flinch away from.

"Besides," Sandy went on, "he seems to me like a very intelligent man. Apparently intricate maps are just one of his talents."

"He's always been a better spy than assassin," Altair replied.

"Then leave the logistics to us, we'll figure this entire thing out," Sandy assured, putting her hands on her hips.

"You should know that for all his strengths, Malik had always been selectively blind. He may not wish to believe what's right in front of him."

"What he does or does not want to believe does not alter facts."

"Do you intent to be this stubborn all the time now?" Altair asked as they resumed their walk to his quarters.

"When you're wrong, you're wrong, and you'll know it. You can glare all you want too, but I'm not affected by it."

"You haven't seen my glare when I'm at my worst."

"I have a feeling I've seen half of it, what time with the feud." Sandy replied with a laugh in her tone. She wanted to tell him that she did not fear him at all, which was why he could glare, glower, and posture all he wanted. However, telling him such a thing would have probably had adverse consequences, so she just chuckled to herself and pretended to be stupid. "Altair really, I just want to help, is that so hard a concept for you to understand? I'm not above asking outside experts on this matter. This investigation is royally fucked up, I mean we have some very high up people doing god-knows what, and I don't want to rely on my own skills. I'm a stranger here, remember?"

"You're underrating your advantage in objectivity."

"Maybe. But I'm not about to turn overconfident and say that I'm some expert detective."

"Fine, talk to Malik," Altair opened the door to his quarters and stepped in.

"I won't thank you, because I was going to do it regardless- but as long as we have a consensus- I do feel better."

"Shrew." He scoffed.

"Arrogant, overconfident, self-centered nuisance." Sandy fired back with a smile.

"Who's a nuisance?" Altair wondered.

It took a moment for the absurdity of the whole thing to filter through, and then Sandy burst laughing and it took a couple seconds for her to calm down so she could collect her things. Then came the feeling of Dejavu as she adjusted the strap of her messenger bag under her cloak. Sandy shrugged it off in favor of checking her wrist braces. The exited the room, heading for the kitchens to pick up some traveling rations for their departure.

When they got to the stables, Talimar and Nyx were still being prepared, much to Altair's frustration, but Sandy was willing to wait.

"I almost feel bad for the horses. No rest of them." Sandy remarked.

"We can take an extra day to travel," Altair noted.

"Somehow I get the feeling that's why you're in a bad mood."

Altair glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. Sandy merely smiled in return.

"I'm starting to hate your ability to pick up on these things." He stated in a lowered tone, almost as if she wasn't meant to hear it.

"And yet, you can't help but love my little ability to pick up on those things," Sandy replied. She didn't know why she said it; it just felt oddly like it had to be said. Altair would've have replied, had it not been for the arrival of one of the stable-keepers who was leading the fully saddled and reigned Talimar. Nyx was brought out a few minutes later; the delay was explained by the mare's needing a new set of shoes. The ones she had been wearing ever since the day they found her had finally begun to show their age and wear.

They set off on their way to Jerusalem in silence, with only the sound of eight beating hooves to break the monotony. Sandy was lost in her thoughts after the first hour, her mind invariably drifted to the pleasant thought of the previous evening. What happened in the gardens had changed the status of her relationship with Altair. Not in a dramatic way, they didn't suddenly go from friends to lovers, but there was a change. The very fact that she could use the word 'lovers' in her thoughts as she had was surprising, but it was just another change. Was it simply a new comfort zone? Sure seemed like it. Truthfully though one thought of comfort zones and she realized they had theirs all jumbled up. They had been sleeping in each other's proximity every night since she had arrived in the twelfth century, save for the three week interlude after the Jamal episode. That was a horribly messed up comfort zone, add to that the fact that he was an assassin, and had anyone else known, she was sure that she would have been called insane, among other things.

She didn't even known why she was no longer bothered by the fact that they were sleeping together. She could have asked for her own room, or went to sleep with the maid girls as she had that one night, but she just didn't want to do it. The only logical explanation was that she was just that used to it, and that was where stuff got messed up. She didn't even want to think what excuse Altair had for letting her use him as a pillow for all this time, she just knew that it was probably some sort of habit that he got into.

The thoughts in her mind jumped and roiled as she tried to figure out this new comfort level between them. She was attracted to him, true enough, no use denying it. She couldn't be having those damned teenage urges without being attracted to him. Was that all there was to it? Attraction based on a carnal fact that she was spending most of her waking, and all of her sleeping hours around this man? Certainly that did not seem right, such an attraction seemed almost pale and pathetic compared to joy she derived from conversing with him, and the simple little touches she allowed herself.

Nyx jolted as she momentarily changed pace, jarring Sandy from her thoughts and she looked up, seeing that Altair was riding by her side again. "Damn it, I keep doing it… getting lost in my thoughts." She grumbled.

"What was it this time?" he wondered.

Sandy turned to face foreword as she contemplated what to tell him. She could lie and say that she was thinking about what was happening, and the connections that weren't defined yet, but she didn't feel like lying to Altair. The truth was less than appealing though, how was she to explain her contemplation of their new-found relationship parameters? "I was thinking about last night," she admitted bravely.

"What of it?"

She spared him a cool glance, wondering if he was at all affected by what happened between them. "I guess I'm just trying to figure out where the cut off point is. It obviously shifted."

"This is not a discussion to be had while riding," he voiced.

Sandy sighed, knowing that he was right, but oddly enough the way he said it sounded a little like a brush-off. "Fine then, we'll talk about it later." By that she hoped later would never come, she didn't have her answer yet. Until she had this all figured out, she knew that she wouldn't be able to have any sort of conversation on the matter.

The rest of the ride to Jerusalem passed with Sandy still lost in thought, trying to reason out what was going on. She tried to keep distant from Altair over the course of the two nights in the wilderness. Maybe it was her, she decided, he was just being affectionate because of their messed up comfort zones. After all, she often found herself waking up with his arm around her waist, so maybe the time in the garden had been just an extension of that. Perhaps she was thinking too hard of these things, injecting meaning into what was a rather intimate, but still platonic relationship.

By the time they arrived in Jerusalem, she had all but convinced herself that she had let her crush take the reigns. She had begun to look for the signs of him reciprocating the feelings she felt, and misreading what he was giving out of some silly teenaged idea of what romance should be. There was nothing there, and she had to deal with it, and for the safety of her own heart and sanity she had to pull back before it was too late. The incident in the garden would go down as an unexplained phenomenon, one of many little things that often did not make any sense. She could attribute it to the messed up comfort circles and say that it meant nothing, and that would be exactly what she'd do.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

A bit about diamonds: Everyone knows that a diamond is the hardest substance on the earth due to the crystalline structure of the carbon atoms. But it is in fact very, very brittle. A hammer blow just right in enough to shatter it in half, if not to dust. The analogy seemed oddly apt.

**Director's Notes:**

I won't even bother to try and come up with an excuse why this chapter is late. I had writer's block from hell, and I had been planning the garden scene for a couple weeks now, so when it came time to actually write it, I ended up shooting blanks. Then after it was done, the rest of the chapter was problematic too. These between-arc chapters are very hard to write without going downhill into soap territory. I hope you enjoyed it anyways.


	24. Streets of Jerusalem

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXIV:**__ Streets of Jerusalem_

Jerusalem was as busy as she remembered it, the streets seemed to overflow with people and getting past them when leading a horse proved tricky. They had managed to get by the gates on a ruse of being the servants of a merchant returning from an errand. Sandy realized that as far as ruses went, she preferred the idea of playing a servant over anything else. She had no pride issue when it came to bowing and pretending to be a subservient girl, she could pretend to be the most polite creature in the world if she had to be. If it got her past the gates, she'd do it. She was yet to see Altair pull his scholarly act, but she was still dubious whether he could really fool the guards with that one. Apparently he kept it as an absolute last resort, and that fueled Sandy's dubiousness. She felt like he was pulling her leg.

They left the horses at the stables and moved on at a slightly hurried pace to reach the bureau. Sandy had to jog to catch up with Altair, and in an effort of not getting separated she wrapped her arms around one of his and clung on for almost dear life as they weaved through the crowd. She found herself staring out over the rooftops at the Dome of the Rock, visible in the distance. The setting sun made the gold cladding of the dome glitter beautifully, and if she turned the exact opposite direction she could almost make out the two domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. She would've loved to visit both places as a tourist, but knew better than to ask. The Mosque was probably off limits to non-Muslims, and with the occupation of the city by Muslims the church wouldn't be the safest place for someone like her.

Before long she began to recognize the streets where she had been before as she walked beside Altair. With no wind streaming past her from being on horseback, she was getting a little hot. Underneath her cloak she wore her leather jacket again; she didn't wear it all the time these days, but she liked to travel wearing it. It protected her from road dust and stones propelled with remarkable force by the beating hooves of the horses.

Before she could even begin thinking of shedding it right on the streets the two of them turned to the rooftops to make the final approach to the bureau. This was still the part Sandy hated them most, but at least it was over and done with relatively quickly. She jumped down the gap in the latticework first, and winced at the jarring impact. She straightened and shed her cloak. Altair landed beside her barely a second later, unaffected, straightening he moved straight for the door leading to the bureau. Sandy shed her bag and coat as well, leaving them on the carpet among the pillows before she followed Altair.

"Safety and peace, Malik." Altair greeted one foot inside the door.

"Your presence here deprives me of both." The keeper replied gruffly.

Sandy chose that moment to step around Altair and make her entry, "Good evening," she uttered calmly.

"You again," Malik stated. "So it is true then, the two of you have been traveling together."

"Well after the Jamal episode- yea," Sandy replied.

"Malik we didn't come here to exchange pleasantries."

"And _we _are not exchanging _pleasantries_," Malik replied.

Sandy couldn't help but chuckle to herself, covering her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound. When both their eyes flicked to her she bit back the laughter and coughed a few times for show. "Sorry, saliva down wrong pipe." The words got her an even more surprised look from both of them. "Never mind."

Malik shook his head, "I suppose Al Mualim sent you two regarding the information I uncovered."

"Yes," Altair replied.

"Please?" Sandy offered with a tiny friendly smile. The way she saw it, just because the two men in the room were always taking pot shots at each other did not mean she had to be on bad terms with Malik too.

"Very well." Malik set down his quill and flicked the lid on his inkwell shut. "Two weeks ago, my men noticed a string of abductions in the Jewish district of the city. It was just a few of the destitute, but over the course of the week after that the abductions crossed into the Christian district. Again, just the poorest, and this time the victims were mostly women, young girls specifically. It caught my attention that the abductors were targeting specific victims. My men uncovered rumors a slave trader behind the ring. Further investigation revealed that his victims were all taken under the cover of night to Akka."

"They were turned over to be the experiments of Garnier de Naplouse," Altair stated.

"Those poor girls," Sandy muttered, shuddering. A thought of the opium crossed her mind, and lord knew what other atrocious things happened to them in that hospital. She was sort of glad that she had not actually seen what went on in that building. Seeing that they were targeting girls as well brought a few other horrible scenarios to mind. The thought of their suffering made Sandy wish she could pig-stick some of the slaver's men.

"This bothers me. Why would Talal aid a crusader?" Malik stated.

"Greed will drive men to the worst of betrayals," Altair stated. "But there is more than that; it will take a while to explain."

"If it is as lengthy as you suggest, then it is best we adjourn this conversation until after dinner. I admit, I am curious."

Altair turned around and wordlessly exited the bureau, his hand already undoing the buckles that attached his sword to his belt. Sandy watched him go, wondering what was on his mind.

"You come here," Malik stated indicating a spot as far away from the door as he could put her.

Sandy glanced at him, folding her arms over her chest, "I have a name, you know."

"Do not argue," he rebuffed.

Sandy moved as indicated, curious as to what was going on. Malik watched her keenly and then his whole expression lightened, it was like he decided that she wasn't some sort of alien in disguise. "Something wrong?" she asked.

"No. Nothing is wrong. I wanted to talk without Altair hovering over your shoulder."

"Ah." Sandy nodded, smiling.

"I guess there is no use wasting time; I wanted to ask, how are you?"

The question-statement surprised Sandy a little, but in a pleasant way. She set her hands on the counter and glanced at the doorway, it made sense that Malik told her to move before the talk began. He probably knew what sort of superhuman hearing Altair possessed. "Well I get along, I had more near death experiences in the last two months than most people in my time have in their whole lives- but I guess I can't complain."

"You do not mind the danger he puts you in?" Malik asked, surprised.

"Well if it was his fault, I would mind. The thing is, none of those experiences were his fault- unless you're superstitious and believe that a person can draw bad events to themselves. We've bumped into some Templars, in fact-" she trailed off, wondering if she should be telling Malik about the episode with Robert de Sable on the streets of Akka. "Yea, we've seen some Templars, and-" she reached up to scratch at the back of her head sheepishly, "I actually kind of- killed one."

Malik's eyebrows almost met his hairline.

"One," Sandy repeated, raising a finger for emphasis.

"It seems like I was underestimating your abilities somewhat," Malik stated calmly.

"A lot of people do. But mostly the guy grabbed me, guess he didn't expect me- being a woman and all- to be able to get out of his grip, and then it was just a matter of getting the knife under his helmet to the chin. I figured the chainmail there would be thinnest and my knife would be more likely to go through."

"A wise strategy. It seems that you have been busy."

"Yep. Been and seen places, and helped a little with this or that. The cloak is not just for show."

"So you are alright after the injury Jamal gave you?"

"Oh I'm fine. It's like I told Altair, one bonk on the head won't get me down. I have a hard head."

"Well it is a good thing that you have a good attitude about it. I don't suppose you found a way back to your time."

Sandy sighed and leaned on the counter as she thought about that one, she knew that if there was a way back home it was probably the same way she came here, and she knew very little of the circumstances that brought her here in the first place. "If there is a way, it's here in Jerusalem, but truthfully- I haven't got a clue. I mean in my time, time travel is the stuff of pseudo-science, everyone kind of thinks it may be possible, but no one wants to go out on a limb and try to do it, no one knows how it may be achieved.

"I see."

"I guess I'm not crazy enough to actually fully believe there _is_ a way back. I may indeed be stuck here, and in that case- it's just my nature to make the best of it."

"And how do you plan to- make the best of it?"

Sandy laughed a little, but it was more of a chuckle. "I honestly can't say. There's not much I can do in this time, my very gender makes people look down on me. I think that I may just stay with the brotherhood. It seems like a nice stable arrangement, and that's what I need right now, stability." She pushed off the counter and made a few steps deeper into the room, folding her arms, clutching at her elbows as she paced back and forth across the room. "Honestly, I kind of like it with the brotherhood. I get some respect at least, I have friends. Where else would I get that? With the Christians? Hah! They'd burn me as a witch."

"You may be right," Malik stated. "Well given that you are an informant now, I suppose you do have a place among us."

Sandy stopped, and looked back over her shoulder with a smile, "Thank you, and at the risk of sounding arrogant- you know that I do have a mind for the job. Part the reason I been traveling with Altair, there is something going on. The two men he killed, they're connected- This slave trader you have discovered is just one more link in this chain. I guess I'm that curious, I have to know."

A shuffling set of footsteps stopped the conversation as Altair appeared, leaning on the doorframe. His hood was down and he stripped off all his weapons except his hidden blade. "Are you two done conspiring?" He asked.

"Conspiring?" Sandy asked. "And what do you think we are conspiring for?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

Sandy grinned; his reply was a little faster and sharper than if he was simply asking a rhetoric question, he probably wasn't aware of it but for her the smallest change of tone was enough to set off a gut feeling. She moved closer to him and put a hand on his chest, "are you avoiding my question because you have no answer?"

"She has you there," Malik stated, amusement clear in his voice.

The expression Altair's face was priceless, a mix of surprise, annoyance, and frustration, Sandy knew enough to try and diffuse the tension before it began to boil by gently patting his chest to draw his attention. Altair stared down at her in a decidedly haughty way, but she gave him her best hundred watt smile.

"Should I leave you two to your _private_ moment?" Malik wondered.

"There's nothing private about it," Sandy replied removing her hand. "This is just the usual."

Before Malik or Altair could say anything there was a knock on the door. Malik stepped around the counter and wordlessly went to get it. Sandy stood there for a few seconds before following him. She figured the sooner dinner was set up, the sooner they'd get to eat, and with additional help they could speed up the setting process. That and she realized that the moment was indeed an awkward one. She had touched Altair somewhat more intimately than she usually did, and in front of another person. In her time pawing at a guy affectionately was just some platonic flirting on her part, it was her prerogative, but maybe in this time it wasn't as appropriate. Altair didn't seem to mind, and neither had Malik. Well with Malik she couldn't rightfully tell yet, but she hoped that she had not just gone and scandalized him with that one. If she had, she'd have to go and patch things over; she'd see how dinner would go.

Dinner was a little more elaborate than Sandy remembered having in a bureau. The servant girl beamed at the praises she received from Malik after he had tasted the fish dish she had made. There was rice done with some elaborate spices and plenty of vegetables. For desert the girl brought some form of baked sweet done without sugar, but covered and dripping with honey. As soon as the servant girl left, Sandy caught Malik's attention and just had to ask the inevitable. "What's the occasion? Is there some sort of holiday or festival that I'm not aware of?"

"There's no occasion, she is trying some new recipes," Malik explained. "I pay her well, and she insists on saving some of the salary to occasionally throw me a feast."

"Ah. I see." Sandy smiled broadly. So much for scandalizing Malik, she thought to herself. She wasn't a guru with twelfth century etiquette, but she was sure that under certain circumstances, accepting feasts like this was grounds for scandal on their own.

Malik cleared his throat and the rest of the meal passed with a comfortable, amiable silence that left Sandy little to do but enjoy her meal. She rather liked this one, the girl in question had a talent for cooking, the fish was perfectly done, and the rice was tender and spiced just right.

"You should marry the girl, Malik." Altair stated after he finished his food.

Sandy blinked and looked at him with some surprise. She would have never thought that he'd utter the word 'marriage' in any context. Especially this sort of context, to Sandy it seemed clear as daylight that the reason the girl worked so hard is because she was either very grateful, or indeed trying to work her way into Malik's heart through his stomach, but to come out and bluntly say it? She wouldn't have figured Altair capable of that.

"She may have gotten her father's approval to work here, and only because of my _condition_, but marriage? He thinks I'm merely an eccentric map-maker who is obviously too _infirm_ to cook his own food."

"How wrong he is," Sandy added, drinking her tea. "Well I'm sure his considerations are for her establishment. If he were to see that she'd be well taken care of, well provided for-" she purposefully let her statement trail off.

Malik cleared his throat again, clearly uncomfortable with the whole topic of discussion. Sandy understood then why Altair brought up the topic, it was probably some sort of return on Malik's earlier words, and she had actually helped Altair put Malik on the spot for his slight hypocrisy. "About that explanation," the bureau keeper stated, his tone of voice shifting into a more business-like candor.

Sandy set down her tea and reached for the small teapot to refill her cup. "More tea?" she offered to the proprietor. "It's going to be quite long."

"Fine." He replied.

Sandy refilled Malik and Altair's cups before they delved into the business of the Templar conspiracy. Malik listened with a slowly rising eyebrow and at the end of the retelling of their adventures in Damascus and Akka his expression was split between incredulity and surprise. Periodically Sandy had to jump in and fill the tiny details she thought were important that Altair was leaving out in his explanation.

When Altair finished talking, Malik leaned back in his seat and stared off at his empty plate. Sandy knew better than to interrupt a person when they were thinking, but somehow she was curious. She wanted to know if her own deductions had been on the mark, would someone else agree with her reasoning?

"There are clearly a number of people involved in this; I agree there is someone else in Damascus you will probably have to kill soon. In the mean time the only way we can get to the bottom of this is by gathering more information."

"Hopefully we luck out a little more as we had been in the past," Sandy said calmly.

"If you can consider running into Robert de Sable on the streets of Akka as 'luck'," Malik stated.

"I don't know, given what I have on him- it may have just been a bit of luck indeed."

"And what is this?" Malik wondered.

"She is convinced that Robert's steward is a woman." Altair stated.

"And she is!" Sandy jumped in. His tone told her enough to know that he still did not fully believe her about that one. "I'll bet you anything that if you were to unmask that one, it'd be a woman."

"Calm yourself Cassandra," Malik said calmly.

"Sorry."

"The gender of Robert's steward, if indeed female, helps us with nothing. You two need to focus on the task at hand, and it is my job to give you the information where to begin your search tomorrow. Some of the slaver's men were seen south of here, scouting the markets that line the border between this and the Jewish district. They also pray at the _masjid_ of this district north of here." Malik paused for a moment, as if checking that they were still paying attention, "There is also St. Anne's church by the _Bab Ariha_."

Altair made no outward sign that he had heard anything at all, but Sandy was sure he was paying attention; she remained silent because this information was for Altair, and not her.

Malik turned to her, "You would better stay in the bureau for this investigation. These are abductors we are dealing with. Should you become separated from Altair, being a foreigner you would attract attention as-" he pause to choose the proper words. "Exotic stock."

"As dangerous as it will be, it is still my job. Besides, I very much doubt that they'd come at me in a small army. One or two guys, I can handle. In fact, I'm pretty sure they won't expect me to have weapons at all, never mind knowing how to use them. I probably wouldn't need to fight either. I'm pretty fast when it comes to running."

"Fine, but if something happens, do not say I did not warn you."

Sandy smiled; maybe he wanted to sound like he was concerned for her safety, but Sandy had caught the faint upturning at the corner of his mouth when she said it was her job to follow Altair around. She would put her money on Malik having been testing her dedication; it was the only thing that made sense.

"I think I'll turn in now, long day ahead of us tomorrow," Sandy got up from her seat, piling her utensils, plate, and cup into a neat little pile.

"Have a good night," Malik said.

"Thank you." Sandy bowed her head a little before ducking out of the room, leaving the two men in the kitchen as she made her way to the yard.

~*~*~*~

As soon as Sandy was gone from view, Altair got to his feet, collecting the dishes into a neat pile that the servant girl would have an easier job picking up when she came to do them.

"Rushing off to join her?" Malik asked calmly.

Altair looked up, giving the bureau keeper a cool glare. "There is nothing between us. Apparently people in her time are just more- open with their gestures." It seemed like the right thing to say given Cassandra's mannerism. She touched people; she ruffled Faisal's hair, and he had seen her place her hand on Antonio's arm like she frequently did on his own. It could only be that in her time those sorts of touches were deemed acceptable between friends. He knew her touches were innocent and reserved for those she considered friends, why bother stopping them?

Malik was smiling again, "Should I tell you to marry her?" he asked.

"You know full well that the rules would forbid that."

Malik paused as if thinking, but Altair knew better than to think he had no retort to that. "I know. I also know you are terrible at following them."

He had seen that one coming, it was unavoidable, and so he was ready with his own reply. "There is a first time for everything," with that said he left the room. Still his superhuman hearing picked up Malik's laughter behind his back. He was beginning to hate people's suppositions more than Cassandra did. He was just glad no one knew of that moment in the gardens in Masyaf. He was sure if anyone had seen them watching the stars like that, the rumors would have gotten worse. He couldn't even say it was platonic what happened that night. Her words had stirred something, and holding her as she watched the stars had felt natural, almost right.

Altair paused in the doorway to the garden to watch her for a long moment, she probably wasn't asleep yet, but her eyes were closed and her hand was fisting the corner of the pillow underneath her head. Her innocence showed the most when she slept, her slumber was deep and serene, child-like, devoid of any caution or conscious effort to remain half-aware at all times. As silently as he could Altair moved closer to take his place beside her, hopefully without disturbing her serenity.

~*~*~*~

Sandy woke with someone nudging her; she cracked one eye open and smiled. Altair was crouching over her form, his arms resting over his knees, but he wasn't fully armed yet. The sun wasn't high enough in the sky to enter the yard, leaving the enclosed space in an artificial twilight, but it was already somewhat warmer than it was at night. "Good morning," she greeted.

"Get ready," he said in a commanding tone as he rose to his feet and moved into the bureau.

Sandy followed him with her eyes and then she heard the voices coming from inside, there were two more men there with Malik. Altair's brusqueness suddenly made more sense and she reached over to her jacket and pulled out her cell phone. She had reset the time on the device to reflect the right time of date, but it still kept the date of the twenty-first century. Right now it said it was around seven in the morning. She tucked the cell phone back in the pocket of her jacket and reached for her arm braces. She could not sleep with any weapon on her like Altair could so she took them off each night. Putting them back on had already become a practiced efficient routine, and she checked the knives in their slots before reaching for her cloak. Getting to her feet she shrugged it on and let it fall shut around her as she slipped her hands into the opposite sleeves.

There were two other men in the bureau, both dressed in long white robes that were a little different from the regular assassins, their masks were pulled down around their necks, and one of them wore a cloak similar to her own. She decided that they must be other informers, some of Malik's men. The one who wore a cloak was younger than other as well; she wouldn't think he was even twenty, an apprentice?

The conversation stopped as the informants turned to her as if seeing her for the first time. "So it is true, Master Altair's assistant is a woman," the older of the two men stated.

"I would not call myself his assistant sir, Master Altair requires no aid," Sandy replied.

"Is that so?" the man looked amused.

"I am merely an informant, should my aid be required by someone other than Master Altair, it is my duty to lend it."

The man laughed, "Well spoken. Well spoken."

"Pardon my interruption," Sandy spoke to Malik, bowing her head a little bit before turning to Altair. He motioned for her to follow him to the kitchen and she did.

"You should not have said anything," Altair stated as soon as they were within the confines of the kitchen where no one else could hear them.

"Why? It's true."

"Sometimes the truth is better left unspoken," Altair stated.

"So you would prefer-" she paused, glancing up at Altair. "Okay I'm not going to try and figure this out. When are we leaving on the investigation?" she asked.

"As soon as you have breakfast," He replied.

"I'll take something to go; I know how eager you are to get going. Don't slow down on my part."

They departed the bureau ten minutes later with Sandy eating on the go. The city was already busy with the morning shopping and their progress was hampered by the crowds on the major streets. "Where do you plan to begin?" Sandy asked.

"The _masjid_ is closest to our location."

Sandy hummed as she bit off a piece of bread chewing on it slowly, falling in step behind Altair as he walked. "I think the Christian district would be a good place to look as well. That's where the abductions have been happening recently, right? That's where the trail should be freshest."

"We will go there after we follow Malik's information."

"Alright then," Sandy smiled and went back to eating.

They took the main streets, and along the way Sandy finished her breakfast and fell in step with Altair. The street were packed and it wasn't rocket science to realize that in this sort of crowd if one person began to shout for help few if any would hear or take notice. There were also lots of alleys on either side of any given street, and any one of them could contain any number of shady people.

"I'm thinking that when it's packed like this, no one would notice if someone screamed," Sandy remarked.

"A couple of people would notice, but they would not interfere if there is a sword involved," Altair stated.

"You think the abductors would be brazen enough to nab people in broad daylight?"

"Keep an eye out for men dressed in black and gold."

"Why?"

"That's the description of the men we are looking for."

"Wait, you knew?" Sandy jumped.

"You were asleep so you did not hear the latest information."

Sandy sighed and followed along as they walked. "You're dodging my questions again."

"They are that brazen," Altair stated.

"Damn. What the hell are the guards of this city doing when that happens?" Sandy wondered. She crossed her arms and titled her head to the side a little, pondering the ramifications. Considering the number of guards the city had, you'd think some of them would be decent enough to intervene if they saw someone being dragged off against their will. What was going on in Jerusalem? She wasn't even a resident and she could already smell the corruption in the city. If the slaver was a Saracen, it also made sense why he would target the Christian and Jewish population of the city, why harm your own people? It all sort of made a vague sense.

They turned another corner and the mosque appeared before them down the street. It wasn't a terribly big building, but it had a walled in garden before it. Sandy's step faltered when she saw that all the people around the mosque were men, she knew enough to read the signs. "Altair, I don't think I can come any closer."

"We will not be going inside, and the garden is a common area, so if you mind your manners no one will even notice that you are a woman."

"If you say so," Sandy followed him past the gate into the gardens around the mosque. Slipping her hands into the opposite sleeves she began to play with the knives strapped to the inside of the wrists. She cast her gaze about the garden, glad for the concealing nature of her oversized cloak and hood. "There."

Altair turned slightly at the sound of her voice and followed her gaze.

In the corner of the garden there was a group of four men, all of them dressed in black and gold tunics, they stuck out among the blander browns and various other earthly tones. All four of them carried swords strapped visibly to their sides. Sandy glanced at Altair, "We can hide behind those plant boxes."

The assassin raised his hand and motioned for her to follow him, Sandy did, keeping her hands on her weapons. They ducked behind the plant boxes and Sandy knew better than to speak while Altair was eavesdropping. She closed her eyes and tried to listen in, but once again she could hardly hear anything except a few words. She shifted closer to the wall of the garden, where the sound would carry a little bit better.

"… Talal found a new buyer after the previous contract fell through. Karim and his boys went to…" the men shifted slightly and the echo stopped being audible. Sandy glanced at Altair who was peering over the other side of the box; he could probably hear the whole thing. The men shifted again and came back into the range.

"… The new order is for more girls. He prefers them untouched."

Sandy clenched her jaw in anger and glanced at Altair, who was looking at her as well. "Four of them, two of us-"

"We cannot alert Talal to our presence by picking off his men."

"What do you mean? You heard them!" Sandy whispered furiously.

"Once I kill Talal, their whole organization will collapse. That is the only thing I can do for those girls," He explained.

Sandy didn't like it, but she knew he was right. If they went off after those four, they would tip off the rest. Altair still needed the location of Talal's hideout, and an opportunity to strike, the motive was pretty much self-evident. She put her hand on his arm and then closed her eyes again to listen. The four men finished their conversation and moved toward the mosque. Sandy frowned but straightened, trying to look like she had just been standing there and not eavesdropping. One glance at Altair told her that he was doing much the same, but underneath the hood he was eyeing her like a hawk. As soon as the four men were far away not to overhear them, Sandy patted Altair's arm, "That was a total burn, all we learned from that is that they still have a customer, meaning they will still abduct-"

"We go over to the Christian district, that's where they will get their targets, and that's where we will have more opportunities to overhear things."

"What if they nab someone right in front of us?" Sandy asked.

Altair did not reply and Sandy decided that he wasn't going to either. She frowned but decided to remain silent for the time being. She followed him out of the mosque's gardens. Inwardly she knew that if those slavers decided to abduct someone right in front of her she would try to boss Altair into helping the girl, and if he didn't help the girl, she'd jump right in there. What were a couple slavers? She could handle four of them, couldn't she? They didn't wear armor on them, one stab and she could kill them. All she'd have to do is dance around their swords, it would be easy, a sword was just a very long knife; the secret was to keep moving. She had handled knife-fights which were more vicious than a bunch of slavers. _God, this is suicide, I'm trying to convince myself that I can fight slavers- with my shitty luck I'll be joining her, and Altair will let me be sold into slavery just to spite me._ She glanced at him and frowned, _he can be so insufferable sometimes. There has to be a way to make him see my side of the argument_.

Sandy followed behind him as she usually did, but she couldn't help but glare at his back. Sometimes she wondered if he honestly did not care or simply and purposefully made it look like he didn't. She could remember the moment they shared in the gardens behind Masyaf; he had been different then, warmer. He was always warmer when it was just the two of them and no one else. Now he was colder, focused on his job, the difference was almost disconcerting. In the gardens he appeared to care, he had been almost tender; she had almost thought that he returned her strange attraction. Now he was colder, it was like she no longer mattered. _Damn it all to hell, I'm still projecting feelings on him. He probably doesn't care, why would he care?_ She thought to herself.

An hour passed as they walked the Christian district with no hide or hair of Talal's men. By that point Sandy began to think that this wasn't as good an idea as it had sounded. She could see the two domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher again. The building loomed over the others around it. She turned to Altair and decided that perhaps moving on would be a good idea, they still had to other spots to check, maybe they would have better luck there. Still when she opened her mouth to suggest the idea, her instinct spoke against it. It was like something was telling her to stay in the Christian district, and she had learned that her instincts were sharp and dependable; they had not failed her before, she would trust her instincts again.

She made a few quick steps to catch up with Altair and put her hand on his upper arm, "Maybe its time to change tactics." She began.

"What do you have in mind?" Altair asked.

Sandy opened her mouth to suggest a decoy plan, but before she could articulate the first word a scream echoed from a nearby ally. Sandy jumped and clutched at Altair's arm. "I was going to suggest a decoy plan, but this works so much better. Come on!" She turned around and began to run towards the source of the sound.

"Cassandra!" Altair shouted.

"No time to argue!" she called back.

She ducked into an alley, and then another scream echoed. Her hands slipped into her sleeves palming her knives, she emerged unto a side street, and there they were, four men in black and gold. The screamer was a girl, barely sixteen year old, another man, maybe only a little older was fighting the abductors, using a large knife to ward them off, but he was already injured. _This is going to be the dumbest thing I have ever done, even fighting that Templar won't take the cake over this_. Sandy thought to herself before lunging into the fray, her knives emerging and extending. There was one of them who had his back turned to her; Sandy knew where to strike first. The girl screamed again as Sandy stuck her knife into the man's back, aiming for the kidney where the ribs wouldn't deflect her blade. The man toppled almost without an alarm as she withdrew her blade.

"What?"

"Get her!" another shouted.

Sandy took a few steps back as the men turned to her, advancing with their swords raised. "Brazen this one, she killed him." One stated to the others.

"No matter, just one more for Talal's stock. Being that feisty she will get a higher price."

"Come and get some if you want some boys, but let me tell you this… a more prudent course would be to run while you can."

The three men exchanged dubious looks; Sandy grinned and shifted into her preferred attack stance, with her arms raised before her. "We are not afraid of you woman."

Sandy smiled, she heard the sound of metal being drawn somewhere behind her. "It's not me you _three_ should be afraid of."

"Then who are we to fear?" another asked, laughing as he raised his sword.

"Me." Altair emerged from the shadows, Sandy heard something whistle by her ear and suddenly one by one the three slavers fell over, each with a knife protruding from their necks.

The girl's eyes widened and she made a few steps back, clutching at her wraps with white knuckled grip. The boy raised his weapon and stepped in front of her.

Sandy lowered her knives and folded them away before stowing them back in her sleeves. "We won't harm you." She stated.

Altair moved around the corpses, pulling his knives and wiping them off on their black clothing before stowing them back in their proper places on his belt. The two youths watched Altair, and the girl shied away from him.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

"That does not matter," Altair stated.

Sandy approached the two and the boy jerked away, she raised her hands, "I just want to help. You are injured; I know some medicine- that cut will fester if you do not wash it." She moved her hand to her side, pulling aside the panel of her cloak to show the boy that it was just a water flask. He lowered his knife and put it away. "That's better, come, sit down here on the crates-" she motioned to the boxes stacked on the side of the street.

"We have no time for this, Cassandra," Altair stated.

"Yes well I'm making time for it. What's the worst that will happen? More of these goons? Please, you could take them, and the city guards."

"The city guards will not intervene," the girl whispered, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Mary, be quiet."

"Peter, they saved your life- those were the slavers, weren't they? They have been taking girls in our district. I was almost one of them."

"Well we're glad to help," Sandy offered, sparing Altair a glance that begged him to remain quiet, she could handle these two on her own.

Mary pulled out a piece of cloth and offered it to Sandy, "for his bandage." She explained. Peter rolled up the sleeve of his tunic and exposed his cut, letting Sandy wash it from her water skin.

"Tell me you two, what do you know of those men?"

Peter watched Sandy work as she washed his would, letting the water from her flask run down his arm unto the stones of the side street. Finally he decided to speak, Sandy noticed the change by the way he shifted his weight. "They have been active in our district for some weeks, abducting at random, and they take their catch to the area near the barbican in the Muslim district, they have a whole warehouse under their control."

"How is it that you know so much?" Altair wondered.

"Everyone in the Christian district knows this!" Peter spoke, looking up. "They hardly hide their activities."

"The guards turn a blind eye and do nothing to help the abducted," Mary added quietly, though she did not even look at Altair.

Sandy hummed as she coiled the cloth Mary gave her around Peter's arm, pausing only briefly she glanced at Altair. By his look she knew that they had come to the same conclusion, the guards were paid off by the slaver to turn a blind eye, there was no other way around it. This left a very sour taste in her mouth. She returned to the task of tying the bandage around Peter's arm and when finished she patted his shoulder. "Now you two, go back home, and forget all you have seen and heard today. We don't need payment past a small favor."

"What is it?"

"Just forget you ever met us. The information you gave us is enough payment."

"I don't know what good it is for you," Peter voiced.

Sandy smiled and moved towards Altair, "Don't worry you two. The nightmare will end soon." She motioned Altair to follow, which he did. She knew the two children watched them go until they turned into an alley, and then she heard the two of them run off. Altair's hand fell unto her shoulder and she stopped.

"What was that?" He demanded.

"That?" Sandy asked.

"The attack- the-" he sounded exasperated for the first time in all the time Sandy had known him. Sandy smiled and pushed her hands into her sleeves.

"You said you wouldn't help anyone if they got abducted, I'm sorry Altair- but that's against my morals. Furthermore, my instinct got you the info you needed. It's a win-win." She turned around and began to talk, but she didn't get further than two steps as he grabbed her arm and pulled her back, spinning her whole body into his grip where he could hold both her forearms.

Sandy looked up, meeting his gaze, "Never do that again." He commanded.

"Or what? You'll chain me to a pillar?" Sandy replied. "I'll do as I please and there is nothing _you_ can do about it!"

He pulled her closer; Sandy kept his gaze, his eyes blazed with a strange new emotion. It wasn't anger, that much she was sure of, there was something else there. "Don't be reckless, if those slavers had no stopped to talk, you could have been dead twice over before I even got there."

"Altair, I'm a woman. That's my trump card; it disarms just about everyone into underestimating me. Besides, I knew you couldn't be far behind and I trust you explicitly."

He made a sound of frustration mixed with annoyance, but his hold on her arms did not loosen up. "If you get killed-" he began. Sandy moved her hands apart and stepped closer so that she was nose-to-nose with the assassin.

"You're not getting rid of me that easy, Altair." She whispered, before she could move away, his right hand let go of her wrist and darted around her waist so quickly that she jumped slightly. Their noses brushed and her eyes flicked to him. They were too close she realized suddenly, teasing was well and good, but they were just too close. She put her free hand on his chest and tried to push him away, but he wouldn't budge. There was a strange look in his eyes that spoke of something indiscernible. What was it? She had seen it before at that.

"Cassandra," he growled.

Sandy's blinked and belatedly realized that she had lapsed into her thoughts and been staring at him.

"Don't ever rush into something like that so recklessly again. You understand me?" he stated. Sandy blinked again and it took a moment for the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice to register as worry. Her jaw loosened slightly, but snapped shut immediately, the stupefied expression she probably had on her face was instantly replaced with a smile.

He leaned down as little and suddenly Sandy's whole frame stiffened, his breath fanned her cheeks again and she closed her eyes, the déjà vu came again. This was eerily similar to the time in that alley in Akka, and this time there were no Templars to crash the party. The attraction that she had been denying began to manifest as a burning in her chest and stomach. The hyperawareness came as the edge of his hood brushed her cheek.

Then he stiffened and pulled away, Sandy let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding and glanced at him. "What's wrong?"

"There are guards on the street, the bodies have been discovered."

Sandy shook her head and followed his as he continued down the alley and out into the next street over, some part of her was frustrated. Another part was thankful that nothing happened, and that part frustrated the first even more. _Close, but no cigar_, she thought ruefully.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing here

**Director's Notes:**

Sorry about the bounce, I kind had a bit of Xmas depression coupled with writers block. The happy-happy times of the season just whack me out of my usual stream because they're rather so commercialized and trivial, it's depressing. That and I'm a little like an Addams family cousin, when happy-happy times come, I'm instantly depressed and nauseated. I hope you liked this chapter nevertheless, and please don't come after me with your self-crafted hidden blades. I do wonna wish a merry (late) Xmas and a happy new year though.


	25. The Slaver, Talal

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXV:**_ The Slaver, Talal

Sandy walked buried in her thoughts, mulling over the information that Mary and Peter had given them. Even with that Altair was not convinced, and they decided to scout the locations near the barbican of the Muslim district. Sandy quickly discovered that the Muslim quarter was the biggest of the quarters in the city, encompassing easily half the total area. Set in the northeast of the city, it also had a very long section of wall; hence knowing the warehouse was near the wall did not end up helping them all that much. She kept her hood up and her hands in her sleeves, moving one foot in front of the other automatically as she trailed behind Altair. Her mind was busy grinding the information over and over, in a crazy vain hope that something would emerge out of the mess. Still, there was no use going over the same thing time and time again, expecting a different result, it could be construed as a sign of insanity. She needed to change her thinking pattern, proverbially tilt her head and squint.

She paused; to do that she needed a new approach. If one way of thinking didn't work, sometimes shifting the angle of view was all that was needed. She decided to fall back on something that she had over everyone else in this century, the scientific method. Everything in the scientific method began with a question. The question here was how the hell did a slaver get enough funds to buy off every single guard in the city, including any new individuals that were hired? When the question was articulated, it became clear that the logistics of such a task seemed too complex, too difficult for one person. Even with a small group of people who actually went about paying off the guards it was unlikely to be viable for long for various and currently mostly irrelevant reasons. Of all those reasons there was one that was relevant and very compelling.

To pay off the guards, there would have to be large sums of money. Everything started with that. Sandy hummed to herself as she thought about that one. It naturally caused her to formulate another question. Where was this slaver getting the money? Even if he was on the bankroll of the Knights Templar they wouldn't be paying him that much, why would they? She discounted that option outright. That left very few viable options, and most of them fell on simple economics. If he abducted people to fill the orders of other individuals, to pay off the guards he'd need to fill a lot of orders. The logistics of filling that many orders would be even more complex. He couldn't possibly be abducting so many people from the streets of Jerusalem; it would have been noticed by the citizens by now. There was no way to insulate such a thing from flying wild on the wings of rumors and whisperings. Then the only thing that made sense was that Talal had a much larger operation than they thought, he had connections in other cities, men in other places, a network. Such a corporate enterprise would naturally be far easier to trace and track.

However, it was then and there that her brain stopped, and rejected the whole idea outright, it was simply too complex. The idea that Talal had a nearly modern corporate approach to trading slaves; it did not fit what she knew of the period. She couldn't help but feel that her line of thinking was about right, but still a little off. There had to be something else in her theories that she was overlooking, and when a hypothesis was thus formed, it was a good idea to get a second opinion. She was fortunate to know some men who were born and raised in this period, Altair would be able to debug the theory of the bias her too modern way of thinking was inserting into her reasoning, and Malik would be able to confirm it for her.

"Altair, do you think Malik would be able to confirm something for me?" She asked, speaking for what felt like the first time in hours.

"What is it?" the assassin wondered.

"I was thinking about the logistics. The slaver's operation, if he has the guards in his pocket, would mean he must have a helluva cash reserve to pay them, right?"

"Yes-"

"But that's where the logistics fall apart. Where is he getting that money? How many guards does Jerusalem have? I imagine if he had to pay every single one, every month, or at whatever term- his income can't _possibly_ support that and simultaneously run a profit- well without moving a lot of merchandise that is."

"You're thinking he can't be getting all his stock from Jerusalem."

"If his stock comes into Jerusalem- hell if just the profits come to Jerusalem, they can be tracked. What's the point of him paying off the city guards anyways? Logistics would suggest that'd he'd have to pay off the guards in all the other cities, and it's all downhill from there. Expenses would outpace revenues time and time again."

"What do you need Malik to confirm?" Altair wondered.

Sandy sighed; maybe she should approach a more direct explanation approach. "Altair, don't you see? It's too complex. That's why the logistics collapse; it can't possibly be a functioning enterprise at _this_ time."

"Then what else is there?" he wondered.

Sandy hummed, "I'm uncertain. There has to be something." Her mind was racing, seeking the oversight, the simple, seemingly illogical explanation of it all. Altair's expression showed frustration, he wasn't fully following her, and she could guess that he probably thought she was leading him around in a circle with this one, and maybe she was. Maybe she was leading herself in a circle as well. Sandy placed a hand on his arm to try and calm him, she had to think. Maybe she had jumped the gun with the confirmation, with the second opinion. She had nothing of what could work, only what couldn't possibly work.

Money had to be involved; there was simply no other option. Kickback had to be in the picture, their source of information on that couldn't be lying entirely. So if they had these pieces of information, they had the system, meaning they needed the process under which it operated. She had to reverse engineer the whole thing. In that split of a second she knew she had been looking at the situation from the wrong end entirely. Who are in charge of the guards? Maybe Talal did not need to bribe the guards individually, but the man who had authority over them. She gasped in shock, and stopped. Altair responded to the quiet sound instantly, turning around. "I got it!" she stated.

"You got- what?" he asked.

Sandy looked up at Altair, wondering what the hell was her brain up to when it chose to overlook this option. "The guards have someone in charge! He didn't bribe the guards, he bribed that person! The kickback would naturally filter down." She made a frustrated noise "Lord, how I could have overlooked that? It's so basic!"

Altair's eyebrows furrowed, Sandy knew that look, he was thinking hard and not sharing whatever was on his mind. She knew that he often had a few other pieces of information that only formed a complete jigsaw puzzle when put together with her own pieces. However, she hated the fact that he didn't want to share his information with her. It frustrated her sometimes, but she knew that she was just the aide, the informant; it was his job as the assassin to put it all together and solve the problems. She was just one link on the chain, and a very low link at that. "Malik should be able to trace that man, no?"

"Yes."

"Then our web of lies, deceit, and treachery grows by one more. I have feeling there is a reason why Talal would pay through the nose for such a bribe. That person is best looked into, it can't be a matter of simple convenience. Furthermore, I honestly think if that person benefits from the slave trade-" Neither of them finished that thought, but Sandy knew that it was given. Corruption usually led to more corruption, pull on one thread and watch as the whole thing unraveled like a giant ball of yarn.

The silence between them resumed, even with the little revelation, there was nothing that could be done immediately. It wasn't like CSI: Miami when Horatio picked up the phone to call his men into action. She wasn't Horatio, and this wasn't her team, Sandy had to make do with that for the time being. Forty minutes later they knew they were on the right track in their search when they saw another group of black-clad men standing at the mouth of an alley, guarding it. Altair did not approach the group too closely; it was enough to watch them from a distance. Beyond the alley was a side street that banked away from view. Sandy glanced up at Altair and wondered, "I'm thinking this is the part where I bow out. Between the wall here, and the guards, there's no way in hell I'm getting closer to whatever is beyond there."

"We don't need to go further. The roof of the warehouse is visible from here-"

Sandy scanned the rooflines and realized with the start that in the distance she could see a line of beige roof over the other flat roofs of the neighborhood. A three storey structure among the sea of two storey ones. "We still don't have the opportunity really, we know how operates in from this warehouse, but- is he always there?"

"That is a slight problem, one that we should seek to correct."

Sandy hummed; she wasn't going to suggest they kill any more of Talal's guards, which would probably get noticed even more than the previous four, so there had to be another source of information. She was just drawing a blank as to what it could be.

"Come, we will check for other possible entry ways," Altair motioned for her to follow. Sandy followed, putting her hands back into her sleeves. They circled around the blocks, keeping the hints of the warehouse roof's line as a guide. Sandy was quick to notice that the buildings around the warehouse seemed to form a perimeter, almost like a second wall, enclosing the warehouse until there were a total of four openings, each of them guarded by a number of men. Maybe there had been an actual wall here at one point, except the wall was gone now, and only the houses remained.

"It's like a miniature fortress," Sandy noted as they came to within sight of Saint Anne's church by one of the city's gates.

Altair hummed in assent, and Sandy scratched at the back of her head, she knew that Altair still had a way into such a defended area; he had no aversion of going via the rooftops, something she could never do. She didn't think she'd ever have the physical power needed to make jumps over alleys, or the courage to run across rickety wooden planks on a daily basis. The whole prospect of doing that made her shiver a little. Just the thought that he could do that, with the whole arsenal he wore, made her wonder how strong and fast he'd be with the added weight removed.

Despite the people mulling about the church, Saint Anne's itself was quiet. The doors were closed and there was no crowd mulling on the steps to indicate that services had simply just ended. Sandy did not think there were services, the church was firmly in the Muslim district and with the crusade going on she very much doubted it was safe revealing oneself to be a Christian in the city.

Sandy placed her hand on Altair's arm as a way to keep track of him, he seemed to have a plow effect of sorts, some people sidestepped him to get out of the way, and as if sensing the danger he could be. However, her presence wasn't that grand, she had to keep close to him at all times, or risk being swallowed by a crowd. As they passed beyond the church, the main street was even more packed. In front of her was the walls that separated the temple mount from the rest of the city, there were some buildings pressed up against this inner wall, and two gates visible through which a steady steam of people was filtering through. Sandy realized with a start that they were due east of the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, the road that Jesus had supposedly taken on his way to be crucified. Visible at a distance down the street, set into the wall of the temple mount was a small building that was supposedly where Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus and had him scourged. She had learned about this route it in Sunday school, but she couldn't remember the other stations, she just knew the first and the last.

They turned to head west by the central road and walked some distance, this was taking them back towards the Christian district. As they arrived at the intersection that officially divided the Muslim and Christian they noticed the high presence of guards. Small groups of them were patrolling up and down the north-south axis street from the gate in the north, just barely visible in the haze of day, to the south and out of sight.

"… Look at all those guards." A voice spoke in outrage.

Sandy instinctively glanced to the source of the voice, a pair of men making their way north as they made their way south towards the bureau.

"I heard that some men were found dead about an hour ago. Their throats pierced by knives and what more they were…" the second men whispered the last part of the sentence to his companions.

Sandy pulled on Altair's arm, halting his step as she glanced up at him and jerked her head towards the two men's retreating backs.

"They're talking about you know what," she whispered to the assassin. "I think its best we listen to the voice of the streets. That never failed me where I'm from." They turned around and fell in step almost immediately behind the two men, close enough that they could listen, but far enough to look like they were just pressed into such proximity by the crowd.

"… I heard that those cretins tried to abduct someone. Finally someone is doing the job that needs to be done," the first man spoke.

"Who do you think did it?" the other wondered.

The first man waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, "Whoever he is, I say he needs to finish them all and be quick about it. If I met him, I'd tell him exactly what I heard in my shop. He'd find it most useful."

Sandy glanced at Altair and the two exchanged grins, perhaps it was worth waiting for these two to separate so they could get whatever this man knew, or thought he knew.

"… My wife is still complaining about the whole thing. She had a favorite seamstress among the Christians, but after her girl vanished- the woman hasn't been able to work. I can't say I'm not little angry myself, she did good work patching and for a good price. That slaver-" the man continued, stopping only briefly as they passed another group of guards. The two of them gave the men a strange look, but passed by. "I'd love to see that that man dead, but there is no way anyone is getting close to him, even if he is at his stronghold every day. He always carries a bow and his men are frightfully loyal. There was a one who tried, I hear- they beat him and his son to death and sold his wife and daughters as slaves."

"You know a lot, my friend."

"Only what I hear, sometimes it pays to be a barber."

"Perhaps we should stop this talk before we get in trouble," the second urged.

"You're right, who knows who is listening."

The group came to another intersection and as the two men continued on their way east, Altair and Cassandra casually turned south, making it look like they were out for a walk if nothing else. The side street led towards one of the small gates towards the Dome of the Rock, but it also turned another ninety degrees, facing west and that was where Altair and Cassandra turned, doubling back towards the bend of Via Dolorosa.

"If you can believe that one, I do believe we just hit the mother lode," Sandy stated.

"Nothing he said indicated that he was lying to his friend, I will have to go to warehouse directly tomorrow. We will see what happened then."

"That's that then?" Sandy wondered. "I'm getting kind of hungry now." Altair grinned faintly, showing his amusement. Sandy pouted, "What? Thinking too hard makes me hungry. Besides-" she paused there, unsure if she should finish that thought. She had noticed that in the past two months she had lost some weight. She had always wanted to ditch a few extra kilos given to her by the irresistible poison that was served hot and fast at McDonald's, but she couldn't have been bothered to simply exercise more. Now that she had lost access to fast food, and the exercise came as a fact of daily life, all the little bits of extra fat here and there had simply rolled off. She actually thought that she could stand to eat more to stop herself from becoming an utter spindle. She was called petite by most people, but there was a line between petite and a wraith, and she didn't want to cross it.

Emerging on the passion road they turned south again, heading down the main street towards the bureau. Sandy remained silent for all of another minutes before she actually felt compelled to fill the silence, as comfortable as it was. "I wonder if Malik has some parchment scraps, if we are to make sense of whatever the hell it is that's going on- It'd make things easier to write them down, get a nice little chart of the connections, of the things we know."

"Why scraps?" Altair wondered.

"Isn't parchment expensive?" Sandy wondered.

"Normally it is, but for this- I'm sure Malik could spare the expense."

"Well I'm going to need a quill and ink as well, naturally… and to be honest, I never wrote with a quill before, I'd like some scraps until I get used to it," Sandy admitted casually. "I'd also like to keep the main thing nice and clean, and keep notes on scraps-"

"You're working too hard," Altair stated.

"I did _not_-" Sandy exclaimed the third word, "just hear that from Mr. Workaholic himself," Sandy replied.

"What did you call me?" he asked, glancing down at her.

"A workaholic, it's like an alcoholic -a drunk- but work is like _your_ drink," Sandy explained. His expression shifted to a faint mock grimace, indicating what he thought of the whole idea. Sandy could guess that he didn't like the comparison to someone who couldn't let work go any more than a drunk could let go of the bottle.

"Your time has some ridiculous expressions," he stated somewhat contemplatively.

"I don't dispute _that_," Sandy laughed. The sound made a couple people turn to stare, their expressions seemed blank and devoid of life, and it took her a moment to realize that it wasn't because she was laughing too loud, but because she was laughing, period.

They returned to the bureau via the usual way, the look on Malik's face spoke volumes when he laid his eyes on Altair again, but predictably it brightened when he turned to acknowledge her. Sandy was somewhat glad that she was in the rafiq's good graces, even if Altair was seemingly forever doomed to be in his bad.

"A little bit early to be returning, no?" he asked, setting his quill down.

"Let's just say- luck was with us," Sandy replied. Altair ducked out of the bureau to the yard, causing Malik's eyebrow to rise. Sandy grinned and approached the counter, "I think he's letting me do the talking," She rolled her eyes. "Actually, its better I do the talking anyways. If I put the information together right-" she paused to articulate her thoughts. "We came across some kids in the Christian district, actually saved one of them from abduction- they didn't say it directly, but they are convinced that the city's guards are paid, ordered, or something- they don't interfere with the abductions."

"I heard rumors of it," Malik replied.

Sandy scratched at the back her head and wondered, "Its like I told Altair, paying them doesn't guarantee cooperation, I really think they're not the ones being paid. It's whoever their superior is."

Malik hummed, rubbing at his chin in thought, "I suppose that would be easier, more reliable, and perhaps cheaper."

"Who would that person be?" Sandy asked.

"The guards answer to their captain; I will have someone look into this, just as a precaution."

"Great, that's actually kind of what I was going to ask. Right now there is just something going on, and its best to look into these things just in case." Sandy knew she sounded like someone who was high on sugar right at that moment, but she was actually proud of these little things. She had a brain, and knew how to use it.

"You are correct there."

"We also-" Sandy stopped upon seeing the look on Malik's face change, instantly commanding her not to say another word.

"Do not do Altair's job for him, the lout can give me the report himself." The rafiq stated.

Sandy laughed again, "Yea- you're right. Well then, here's something for little ol' me. You wouldn't happen to have a few scraps of parchment lying about that I could use? Well I'll need a quill and ink as well. There's something going on, all the targets thus far had been connected to Robert de Sable somehow, and I want to organize what I know… there's just so much information in my head right now, I need to put it in order on paper if I'm going to make any sense of it all."

"I will see what I have about. If I don't get it to you this evening, I'll prepare it for you in the morning."

Sandy nodded and smiled, "thank you so much."

"Your hard work is commendable, given that your reasoning has been useful before, it would be beneficial to allow you to continue your strange _craft_."

"I take no credit; I'm just doing what I can."

Malik shook his head and waved her off, Sandy took that gesture as a 'you are dismissed' and for all of a moment she was unsure of what she should do now. She knew better than to stand there like an idiot, because she would interfere with his work, instead she decided that maybe bothering Altair would be a better solution. Sticking her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she stepped out into the garden, eyeing her companion. "Malik didn't let me give him any information regarding Talal, that's your job. Up and at it."

Altair's expression changed to show her exactly what he thought of Malik's meddling, but the annoyance and frustration there weren't directed at her. Sandy thought she heard Malik's chuckle behind her, but couldn't be sure. She wouldn't have put it beyond him to be doing this out of their usual animosity throw down. Still, suddenly she felt a little like a ping-pong ball during the game. _Maybe it would be smarter to avoid getting into the middle of it all, might save me a headache_, she thought to herself as she moved to the carpet and plopped down on it. Altair stared at her for a long moment, but then got up and moved into the bureau without saying a single word.

Lying on her back she sighed in contentment as the stress of the day washed itself out from her system, today was a good day as far as days went in this century. She closed her eyes and tried to overhear what was going on in the bureau, but all she heard was the fact that there was talking going on, the words themselves were indistinct and inaudible.

~*~*~*~

Altair set off for the warehouse shortly after breakfast, just as soon as the meal settled in his stomach and he could take the rooftop way without developing a cramp in his side. Without Cassandra to limit his mobility to the streets of the city he only needed to descend once on Via Dolorosa, where the street was much too wide for crossing via the rooftops. Beyond there he made quick journey to the phantom wall that separated the warehouse district and its surrounding block from the rest of the city. The guards were still in place, alert as ever, but he got past them via the rooftops without them being any wiser to the infiltration. He almost wished he could see the look on their faces when their master would be killed while they were on guard. Guards like that were useless when he was on the job; he had infiltrated tighter security before. The Hospitaller's in Garnier's hospitals had been more difficult.

Still he exercised a little bit of caution as he made his approach to the warehouse, wary of any sort of ambush that might be laid out for him. Undoubtedly Talal knew of the four dead men from the day previous, if he was in any way smart he should have taken precautions, as useless as they would be. As he drew closer he began to notice the people inside the block. The poorest of the city were gathered around the warehouse, moving about their business with a deadened look on their faces. Even the children here seemed lacking in energy. The very fact there were children her left an unpleasant taste in Altair's mouth; the slaver was essentially holding the whole place hostage. If he was a skilled archer, any number of innocents could become casualties. He had to close in on the man without alerting him, as to limit the potential of innocents getting hurt.

The warehouse had a flat roof and a hatch, but the walls of it were a difficult climb, mostly smooth and the warehouse itself was set in a small plaza with open space along three sides, despite the fourth side being close to some houses there was still no way to simply jump across to it. There was no other choice than to descend to the streets.

Altair cast his eyes about the square, checking for anyone waiting for someone to appear on the empty plaza, but his sweep turned up nothing. It seemed like there was nothing living on square around the warehouse, so he was free to use the ladder propped up against the side of one of the houses. As his feet touched the street, he became keenly aware of the quiet surrounding him. Somewhere in the background there was the buzz of the main street and the few people shuffling about on the side street, but the square around the warehouse was deserted. Circling around the warehouse he spotted an open door, beyond it was only darkness.

It had to be a trap, but if the slaver thought he could take him unprepared he was gravely mistaken. Within the warehouse, the advantage of a bow's range would be minimal at best, and he wasn't going to stand still long enough for Talal to nock his first arrow. Still as he stood in front of the open door he decided that walking into an obvious trap was still not the way he would have chosen things to go. Still, there was something satisfying about killing the target when he thought he had the upper hand. With that in mind Altair stepped into the darkness of the warehouse.

~*~*~*~

Malik had proven true to his word, in the morning there was a small station set up for her to work at, it was just a small table with a rather simple chair set next to the counter. There were some scraps of parchment on it, one side marred by notes and bits of ruined maps. She also received a small scrap of vellum to wrap her notes in for transport. It took her a little to figure out how to write with a quill without smearing the ink all over, but she got the hang of it. Right now she was writing down all the various little bits of information on each target, and those who played a part and all information she knew about them.

Occasionally she felt the rafiq's gaze fall on her, he could be intimidating and she almost felt like a student under the gaze of a very strict teacher. She tried not to squirm and move about when he was watching. Trying to put it out of her mind, she appraised her handy work. On the biggest scrap she made a diagram of circled names connected with lines. At the center she put in Robert de Sable, everything was connected to him. Radiating around were the targets Altair had already killed. Connected to Tamir and Robert was an empty circle for the person to whom the first vellum letter had been addressed to. Garnier and Talal were connected for their obvious supply connections, and there was a second empty circle connected to Talal, for the man whom he was bribing to get the guards to turn a blind eye. For the dead individuals she drew a small and rather crude looking tombstone next to their circle. There was also a bubble for the mysterious man mentioned in the vellum letters. She circled it twice for emphasis before adding a little tombstone as well, jotting 'the information source' underneath, as she connected the bubble to Robert's.

Then she picked up a couple of scraps and each one was allotted to a single person, where she commenced to scribble every bit of information they knew. Which wasn't a lot, especially for the mastermind behind it all, and she added 'has a woman for a steward' just to fill some of the void on that leaflet. She was sure a profiling expert would be able to say something about that, but to her mind there was only one explanation.

~*~*~*~

The darkness in the warehouse was near total, and the silence was heavy, broken only by the sound of his footfalls on the ground. The two steps stirred something in the darkness; a low moan came from some distance in front of him. As Altair's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized that he was in some sort of small anteroom. Scattered about were various wooden crates and items. Set against a wall were some swords that looked slightly worse for wear. The air in the room was foul, filled with the pungent scent of sweat, illness, and running with the distinct undercurrent of blood, an acrid metallic scent he would know anywhere.

He moved deeper into the room and suddenly the door slammed shut behind him, rattling on its hinges, Altair didn't even flinch.

"I knew you would come, Assassin." A voice spoke.

He moved deeper into the room, knowing that it could only be his target. "What now, slaver?" he asked, however all he got in reply was silence, which was broken moments later by the rattle of metal as a door on the far side of the room opened. It was a message; he was guided deeper into the warehouse, deeper into the trap. Still, he had no choice but to obey, Altair crossed the room, ignoring the faint moaning coming from somewhere. As he stepped past the second door, it too slammed shut behind him.

The second room was almost pitch dark, save only for a lone shaft of sunlight penetrating from the ceiling and falling unto the ground. By the size of the room, it was clearly most of the warehouse's actual space, divided into two levels by a walkway. It was then Altair realized where the moaning was coming from, pushed up against the walls around the room were cages, within them were the missing people, mostly women, but a few men. They looked haggard and ill and the smell of sweat, blood, and illness hung about the room like a miasma. It was a truly reviling atmosphere, and what disgusted Altair more was the realization that a lot of the women were just girls as well. Once he was done with Talal, he'd have to tell Malik to send his men to raid the place and set these unfortunate souls free.

"I do not suppose offering you money will buy your promise to leave and never come back," the voice stated.

Altair looked up to the walkway, realizing somewhat late that there were men up there. They materialized from the deep shadows like specters; among them was one man with a bow, his target. There were ten of his soldiers around him, a number that would make getting to him difficult, he probably counted on them stalling him so he could shoot. It could prove to be troublesome, but not impossible, if his men weren't cautious, they themselves could catch an arrow from their master.

"Only your life will be enough to pay for all the misery you have caused," Altair replied.

Talal chuckled, emerging into the light of the sun streaming through the roof. "You say so while here you are, in my lair, among my men. Outnumbered and at my mercy."

"And there you are up there, like a coward. Come down and face me with honor!" Altair replied.

Talal sighed and waved his hand, "you had your chance, assassin. Now you must die."

The slaver's men reacted like dogs released from their fetters, descending to first level whichever way convenient, drawing their weapons instantly. Altair reached behind his back for his short blade, advancing into the shaft of light at the center of the room. The first attacked from his left, Altair sidestepped the swing and swung his arm, ripping the man's throat out with a single pass. The death of the first man triggered another two to attack simultaneously, Altair moved, not letting his back turn to Talal and the one thing that posed him any sort of danger in the melee. He blocked one swing and beat and simply dodged a second. In the slightly open window he kicked the first man to the knee, causing his to howl in pain as the joint gave way in a manner it was not supposed to, but the sound died a second later as his short blade found home through the man's neck.

Out of the corner of his eye Altair saw Talal shift position, the first bit of doubt appearing on his face. His eyes flicked back to the fight as the third man attacked again, anger triggered him to use some unknown reserve of energy and the first attack that Altair parried almost swept the short blade from his grip. Still the man was leaving wide opening, when he attacked again, Altair knew that blocking a raging animal would probably do less good than harm, so he simply dodged around the man and buried his short blade through his spine from behind.

Three down, seven to go, his eyes flicked back to Talal, watching as the discomfort grew. The man was no longer purely enjoying the spectacle; somewhere in the back of his mind he was probably beginning to realize that his men couldn't handle this task. Altair decided that a little bit of fear was probably a good thing; it would cloud the mind, and breed hesitation.

The rest of the men seemed to have missed the point; their attacks came just as recklessly as before, like true dogs ordered by their master. The fourth and fifth men came simultaneously; Altair had stepped back to draw them into a tighter formation. He dodged around them, slicing open the throat of one in the same movement, and sticking his hidden blade into the kidney of a second from behind. The five remaining men hesitated ever so slightly, allowing Altair to go on the offensive. A sixth man was downed by another thrust of his hidden blade, and when a seventh lunged at his back, Altair swung around and stabbed him in the stomach with his short.

"Keep him away from me!" Talal shouted.

Altair looked up and cursed, the slaver was running for the ladder at the back of the second level's walkway. At the top of the ladder was the roof hatch he had seen during his scan. The three remaining men surrounded him, but among the sea of bodies there were breaks in their lines. He spotted the ladder leading to the loft and made a run for it, already sheathing his short blade behind his back. The ladder shook and rattled as he scrambled up it and at the top he kicked it down so the other three men on his tail would be delayed. Talal was struggling with the latch on the trap door, this gave Altair a window to close the distance a little, still he managed to get the latch and slip through it and unto the roof. Altair gave chase in earnest; he was at the second ladder and scrambling up in a second.

Emerging unto the sun baked roof, his eyes were assaulted by the glare of the nearly noon-time sun. After being in the dark of the warehouse he was almost blind for a few seconds, but even through squinted eyes he saw the black and beige figure of Talal, running across the rooftops. He had jumped down unto the roof of the house where it was close on one side of the warehouse. Altair followed, leaping down unto the same roof and giving chase. The man had a head start, but he was losing it due to hesitation with each jump from roof to roof. Altair knew where he was going; there would be other men at the guard posts. He watched as the slaver leapt down from the roof unto a covered balcony and from there unto the street.

There was a gasp coming from the street level and Altair cursed, innocents were the last people he wanted to get involved in this chase. Talal could use any one of them as a hostage and it would make the job turn unpleasant. Without looking he leapt down unto the balcony and then the street, only to come face to face with Talal and his bow, an arrow nocked and ready. Altair cursed silently, realizing that he had just stepped into another trap, a cul-de-sac, and Talal was standing at the entrance.

"It is over, assassin." The slaver stated in a deathly calm tone.

**The Tidbits Corner:**

CSI: Miami: This is a television show aired in North America (and some other countries), the full title 'Crime Scene Investigation: Miami', basically it's a police procedure detective show, a very popular series. Horatio is the lead character of it. Felt the need to explain that one to my international viewers.

**Director's Notes:**

I know that is a very, very evil cliffhanger, given my recent update pattern, but please bear with me! I had to go biweekly. My university workload is such that I am barely able to keep up these days. Biweekly gives me the time to figure out my class work and write a good decent chapter. As much as I hate to be doing this to you guys after months of being weekly and regular, the problem should lift at the end of March when my classes are done for the semester. It sure as hell beats a temporary hiatus until then.

Again, thank you all for the massive influx of reviews in the past two weeks. I think I lost count on how many I got, but I'm pretty sure there were a few new readers and such. Thank you all. And I want to wish a rather late happy new year to you all as well.


	26. Sleepless in Jerusalem

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXVI:**_ Sleepless in Jerusalem

Altair's fists clenched almost as if on their own, his eyes locked onto the arrowhead's gleaming edge in the sunlight. At this range the odds of dodging the arrow fully were low. With the knowledge that he would likely be hit, a decision had to be made where he could afford the injury. It was an idiotic thing to think about, normally injuries of any kind were unacceptable, but he had to kill Talal. As long as the arrow didn't embed, any sizable gouge would be a minor injury, he could deal with that. He took a deep breath and settled into what felt like the familiar trance of the job, time itself seemed to dilate as he saw Talal's expression shift. The slaver had probably taken his inhale as a sign of nervousness, he was grinning about it. That was good, it meant that some part of his guard was lowered; Talal didn't know the assassins as well as he thought and Altair would work with that. Altair noted the slaver's left arm slackened, reducing the tension on the bowstring, a thin line barely visible at the distance between them.

The time dilation allowed him to spot the moment when Talal's fingers began to uncoil and his instinct took over as he went for the attack. Banking that Talal would aim for the heart, which was to the left of the chest, Altair moved right. The arrow whizzed past an instant later, whistling as it went, there was no pain, but he felt its tip tug the material of his tunics. Altair didn't stop to think about the fact that he had done the impossible and dodged the arrow entirely; he closed the distance between himself and his target. Talal exclaimed as the bow was pulled from his grip and a second later Altair had him by the tunic and his hidden blade buried in his chest.

"You lose, slaver."

Talal tried to chuckle but all he could do was choke out a gurgle as the blood was already welling up into his throat. Altair eased him to the ground, pulling his hidden blade free from the wound and reaching for the feather marker in his pouch. "Do not think-" the dying man's voice cracked, "that you will stop us."

Altair swiped the feather marker through the man's blood as the slaver's eyes closed for the final time and remained crouched over the body long enough to make sure that his victim was dead before he left. He made his way to the nearest ladder and scaled up its height and unto the roof. There he stopped to assess the damage. The arrowhead had passed so close to his side that it shredded his top tunic, and nicked the one underneath, but there was no injury. The tunics could easily be sewn back into wearable condition. Satisfied, Altair resumed his journey back towards the bureau. As he vaulted across another rooftop, the city's alarm bells began to peal. It seemed like one of the men who survived the initial fight in the warehouse had gone to raise the alarm. It could complicate matters if they wanted to raid the warehouse.

Sandy looked up when the bells began to peal across the city. It was a wave; at first the lone bell in the distance, and then rippling outwards the voices of others joined the chorus. She glanced at Malik and caught his expression of disapproval, she knew that Altair would be hearing about this one as well as he had heard about the last one. She just wanted to see the arrogant assassin back and safe, was that so much to ask? Her thinking train ground to a hall with that one though as she realized how dubiously pathetic that sort of statement was. Sandy shook her head; Altair had worked his way under her skin and wasn't going to leave any time soon.

"Something wrong?" Malik asked.

Sandy's head snapped up and she looked at him, "no- nothing… just lost in thought."

"You finished your work?" he asked next.

Sandy scratched at the back of her head sheepishly, "yea- it's sort of paltrier than I thought- still, now that I have it down, it's going to be of use."

"I want to look at it."

"It's not much, I wouldn't want to pull you away from your more important work," Sandy replied.

The bureau keeper watched her for a long moment and Sandy grew increasingly more nervous with each passing second. "You have to learn to trust your judgment." He said after a long moment.

"I do trust it."

"Not when it has to do with someone else," the rafiq interjected before she could fully articulate her explanation.

Sandy frowned, but his expression remained perfectly level, as if he knew he was right and it was only a matter of time until she was forced to come to the same conclusion. Sandy almost asked what he meant by that one, but stopped because she decided not to make herself seem more ignorant than usual. She had a good clue to what he meant, how was she to tell him that the reason she second-guessed herself was because in this time her reasoning was somewhat different, and she was never sure if it fully applied. Furthermore, she couldn't even explain her method half the time because it was so not twelfth century. Finally she sighed, "I just don't want to mess anything up if I'm wrong," She finally said.

"You overrate your importance," Malik began in a calm tone, causing her head to snap up again; somehow he managed to sound patronizing and paternal at the same time. "You are merely an informant; it is not your job to decide the course of action for anyone. Your job is to present gathered information, and leave the decisions to Altair."

Sandy hung her head, realizing that he was right. His harsh words should have probably stung, but she wasn't going to argue with them, mostly because any argument she could come up with at that moment would probably sound like the temper tantrum of a spoiled child. She also wasn't going to blame Malik for reminding her of rank. How was she going to explain that in her mind she saw herself on equal footing with Altair, perhaps not in assassination skills, but just about in every other faculty. How was she to explain that she felt she had more responsibility to him than just getting the info? She wanted to keep the arrogant assassin safe and in one piece and that was why she tried too hard. If anything that sort of explanation would probably look more compromising than the figment of an overly-ambitious informant. She could deal with being called overly ambitious, but she didn't want people to think there was something there between Altair and her that wasn't there.

"I'm back," a voice announced. Sandy looked up and realized that she had utterly missed Altair's return, he was glaring at Malik, but her eyes instantly zeroed in on the ragged rip on his tunics.

"The usual then?" Malik asked.

"The usual is right-" Sandy spoke, "there goes another set of tunics."

Altair gave Sandy a cool glare and then turned to Malik. "With Talal dead his organization is headless, but there are still his current captives. Get some of your men to raid the warehouse and release them."

Malik shifted his weight as he thought for a moment, "normally I would delegate that to the city guards, but seeing as they are unreliable in this instance-"

"How safe do you think that place would be for me to visit?" Sandy asked, she knew it was a silly sort of request, but right now she felt it was her responsibility to put her knowledge to use. Truth be told, she was the best chance they had of figuring out what the hell was going on, and how all their targets were thus connected. Compiling her knowledge today made her realize just how little they still had, and it whet her appetite for more. If she had to turn Talal's warehouse upside-down for more information she was willing to do it.

The two men exchanged looks before Malik spoke, "It should be reasonably safe. Still I would have liked to keep the number of men I send small- with you there I can't do it."

"Before you shoot me down, I'll point out that most of the abductees in there are women- right?" Sandy paused, looking at Altair.

"Yes."

"So there. If most are women… in the interest of procuring their cooperation it would be better if they were not subjected to what they would perceive as abduction- _again_."

Malik watched her with a questioning expression his face.

"I will go as well," Altair stated.

Just like that Malik's gaze flicked back to Altair, "that's a novelty, what happened to your impatience with petty information gathering?" he asked, looking Altair square in the eyes.

The other assassin remained perfectly quiet, but the silence in itself spoke volumes.

Sandy got up form her seat and approached Altair, putting a hand on his arm, disguising her wish to get a closer look at the rends in this clothing as a calming gesture. He didn't look like he had been bleeding, but she had wanted to make sure. "Malik with all due respect to your men- when it comes to information gathering for _our_ case, its best the gatherer is familiar with the case. The place is the den of the slaver, there has to be something in there, and I intend to find it."

"You have made your point; I will have some men gathered, rest for a couple hours."

"Thank you," Sandy smiled.

When she had been summoned by the arrival of a spy from Jerusalem, Maria didn't expect this. The man looked like he had ridden the distance between Jerusalem and Acre in a great rush; his horse was barely moving its legs and he himself was not better. She took the sealed letter from his hands, ordered him to go and have a meal to eat and water to drink by virtue of her limited official authority and rushed to the keep. Somewhere on the stairs between the levels she realized that Robert had warned her not to allow anyone to disturb him. Last time she had seen him he had been engrossed in a report that arrived from Chastel Blanc that morning, and there was a stack of other correspondence on his desk. She didn't know the details, but it was bad enough if he was already in a bad mood. Something told her that the letter she was carrying would only add to his bad mood. The vellum was almost like a weight in her hands, it was as if the ink itself was like lead.

Taking another flight of steps before turning down the hall towards the keep she noted the lack of guards at the final turn. Robert only sent them away when he wanted absolutely no one to disturb him, not even the sound of their conversations echoing down the hall. Maria wasn't the one to point out that the door was nearly soundproof and there was no way that the echo was that good. She figured it was probably other people approaching the guards, asking to relay things that bothered him. If those cowards did not want to face him during his bad moods, he wasn't going to give them an escape. Invariably this transferred courier duties on her shoulders, but it gave her excuses to linger in the keep and away from the rank and file soldiers.

She clutched at the letter as she walked calmly to mute the sound of her footsteps on the flagstones. Coming up to the door she paused before knocking softly. In her mind she could see him looking up at the door with a glare that could kill raw recruits at a fifty paces, she let a second tick by before opening the door and stepping inside, her hand rising to the straps of her helmet. "Message from Jerusalem," she announced, hoping that it would work as a sort of excuse. Approaching the table she laid the Vellum letter down and then pulled off her helmet. "The messenger all but killed himself riding here." She added.

Robert picked up the letter but hesitated reaching for his dagger letter opener, "It is probably news of the assassin." He stated. Maria remained silent as she watched him finally unseal the letter and unfold it. She cast her eyes around the room to distract herself from the nagging curiosity. She noticed that on the other table across the room were a jug, goblet, and tray done in ornate pewter. The other goblet was on the Grand Master's desk. She took a moment to take stock of the table. The documents were now in two piles, on his left were those he did not yet review, and on the right were those reviewed. Her eyes caught a letter bearing the seal of King Richard and grimaced, odds were that whatever his majesty wanted from Robert, it was little more than another glorified tantrum from the moody king. When Richard pitched one of his tantrums, it wasn't uncommon for someone to feel the wrath, and now that Garnier was dead and the Knights Hospitalier were in the midst of an internal conflict over who would be the next Grand Master, the king decided that his best soldiers were the Templars.

Robert suddenly eased back into his chair and the movement caused Maria's eyes to snap to him. "The assassin did show up in Jerusalem," he stated.

"Who?" Maria asked.

"Talal. He attacked some of the slaver's men, but it is dated two days ago."

Maria remained silent; she didn't feel the need to state the obvious. Two days in this sort of situation was too long, things could have changed a hundred times by now, and there was nothing that could be done about the assassin as a return letter would not arrive in Jerusalem for another two days. "You don't expect Talal to survive."

"I do not," Robert affirmed. "Nevertheless, this is the final confirmation I wanted. Our former ally has sent his demons after us. I can predict his movements from there, and we will use Acre as a staging ground for a trap."

"William will be difficult to convince that the assassin could probably get into his fortress. Add to that Richard is probably giving him more problems than he can give us."

"We still have Sibrand," Robert stated, picking up his goblet, swirling the liquid inside gently before draining it.

Maria knew better than to speak against the plan when it was still clearly still in its infancy. She didn't want to point out that they didn't know when the assassin would return to Acre, and even then, there was an even chance to his target being either William or Sibrand. Robert probably thought of that himself, she wasn't paid to overstate the obvious. Still, the situation was otherworldly, how could one assassin possibly kill so many high ranking men and expect to live? Or was that assassin simply that good? She had stood face to face with him only once, and that time alone had been enough to give her an impression, he was dangerous, a powerful opponent, but could he actually be dangerous enough to handle this task? "Greed had made him reckless. He's willing to risk compromising his position for the potential power of the fallen," she noted.

"He is gambling, and I intend to see him lose." Robert stared at his goblet for a long second before getting to his feet and moved across the room towards the serving set. "Wine?" he asked, giving her a side look as he refilled his goblet.

"You know I do not drink," Maria replied calmly. That was mostly true, the only time alcohol touched her lips was when she received communion during Mass.

"I know." He crossed the room and set his goblet back down on the table before easing into his chair.

"Should I leave?" Maria asked, she had done her duty, and right now she had a feeling that she was a convenient distraction away from the paperwork. It had to get done, so she'd remove herself if she had to. He'd be less grouchy about it later if he didn't have to do it by candle-light.

Robert took the letter she brought and folded it neatly before he laid it aside in a pile its own, "have I ever sent you away?"

"Do I answer that?" She smiled and moved around the desk to stand behind his back.

"What are you doing?" Robert asked, though it sounded more like demand.

Maria placed her hands on his shoulders, moving her fingers, kneading the tension from his body. She decided that maybe a massage would be a better solution to the stress than drink and it was a rare opportunity to actually give him one. She felt him tense even more under her grip. "Unless you relax this will do more harm than good." She stated bluntly.

They returned the warehouse shortly after nightfall with three of Malik's men, three low ranking assassins clad in short-tailed tunics and gray hoods. Sandy could say she didn't like neighborhood, it was dark, with shuttered windows that barred any and all signs of life from escaping unto the streets. The warehouse was little more than a hulking dark box in the darkness, unlit and seemingly deserted, a mood that seemed to work for the whole neighborhood. Standing outside its doors were two guards.

"They will have to be removed," Altair stated, Sandy noted a touch of annoyance in his voice.

"Master Altair, allow us," one of the three men stated.

Altair nodded his head and two of the three men moved. Sandy knew what we going to happen so she turned away. Somehow she still couldn't get herself to actually watch an assassination. Thinking about it was different, it was sort of abstract, but seeing it happen right in front of her eyes was a whole other thing. She heard the men move by the bare whisper of their clothing, and then she heard the faint sound of metal leaving sheathes and after that there was silence. She waited for any sort of sound to indicate that they had done the task, but nothing came. After ten seconds she looked up and her eyes widened, the two guards were on the ground, the two assassins were wiping off their knives.

"I didn't hear a thing," she commented.

"That's why they're Malik's men. They excel in silent kills."

"Silent is right, I only heard a whisper of clothing and the knives coming out."

"Then you, Lady Informer, are one of the few who heard that and lived to tell the tale," the leader of three stated.

Sandy was impressed, even Altair couldn't kill people without making some sort of sound. She wondered just how long these men trained to have that much control over their bodies and blades, enough to seemingly defy the very law of nature.

"Master Altair, go on ahead. We will hide the bodies."

Altair nodded and Sandy followed him as he made his way towards the now unguarded entrance to the warehouse. Her hands slipped into her sleeves, palming her knives. She wouldn't rule out the impossibility that there were more guards inside the building. Stepping into the warehouse she grimaced at the stench emanating from inside. "Has this place ever been aired out?" she wondered, covering her nose with her mouth.

Altair paid her little attention as he walked deeper into the warehouse, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Sandy had no choice but to follow.

"They are here," Altair announced as soon as they were within the large chamber.

"I can barely see anything," Sandy muttered, the limited light that filtered into the warehouse from the skylight and the small high windows was barely enough to keep her from tripping on her own two feet, it was hardly adequate for anything else.

"There's not much to see," Altair stated ruefully.

Sandy squinted, the warehouse was darker than even the street, and somehow she thought that her eyes had reached the point where the pupil would not dilate any more.

"Master Altair, we have dealt of the bodies," a voice spoke from the darkness.

Sandy would have jumped if she had not been expecting them to come in at any moment, but they had still startled her somewhat.

"The keys to the cells should be somewhere here, find them."

The three men nodded their heads and scattered about the room.

Sandy put her hand on Altair's arm, "Alright, let's gets to work. I can barely see anything right at the moment, so you'll have to find the room where the slaver conducted his business from."

"How do you intend to search for anything if you cannot see?" Altair asked.

"I have something from _home_ that will allow me to see."

"Come here then," he led her back outside the main chamber, at the side of the ante-chamber that was at the entrance of the warehouse he pointed out a wooden door. A knock on it confirmed that there was a room beyond. Sandy reached under her cloak into her bag, rummaging along until her fingers met the long shape of her miniature flashlight. "Ah there it is," she pulled it out and began to shake it. She had never used a battery-powered flashlight, opting for a battery-free LED one. The magnet made a rattle as it moved along the copper coils, but in this time she didn't care.

"What is that thing?" Altair asked.

"A light source, shaking powers it." Sandy explained. She kept at it for about thirty second and then hit the switch. The LED cast a clear bluish beam of light that started Altair, Sandy would've giggled at the ridiculousness of his reaction, but it wasn't funny. She cast the beam at the door, and then jiggled the handle.

"Predictably locked," she muttered, "not a problem."

"Stand back," Altair voiced.

Sandy ignored him and kneeled in front of the door, she knew that if he were to kick it down, he would make too much noise, right now she would hate to be interrupted by some guards who heard the commotion. She aimed the beam of her flashlight into the key hole, "three tumblers, typical. I could drive a truck through this keyhole." She noted, reaching into her back for her lock picks.

"What are you doing?" Altair asked.

"Something else I'm good at, besides setting fire." Pressing her flashlight between her shoulder and her neck, she aimed it at the keyhole shakily, simultaneously sticking a lock pick into the mechanism. It was a little odd, to be able to see the tumblers where she was used to doing this job by feel alone. The first tumbler was fouled, probably by repeated rough insertions and removals of the key; she had to jiggle it a little more than normal, but finally it gave way and aligned. The other two clicked without any effort and the lock gave a loud click as it disengaged. "Voila!" Sandy declared, letting her flashlight fall into her hand as she pushed the door open. It creaked, but swung open. "No noise, no disturbances." She stuck the pock pick back into her kit and stowed it away before getting to her feet.

Altair stepped past her into the room without uttering a word.

"Artists never get appreciation," Sandy mumbled as she followed him into the room. It was very small, without any windows, the only light was a mute diffusion coming from the ante-chamber. She cast the flashlight's beam around it, noting the number of oil lamps scattered about the room. She pulled out her Zippo and approached the nearest oil lamp, when she lifted it, she could tell by the weight that there was oil in there. Getting the little lamp lit proved a little tricky, but she managed it without splashing herself with the oil. Clicking off her flashlight and sticking it into her bag. She went about the room, lighting the other lamps until the office was lit up in a dim glow. It was barely enough to work by, but she knew it would have to do.

The light let her appraise the room fully, there wasn't much to appraise. The only furniture in the room was a reasonably large desk and chair, there were no shelves, no stacked books, it seemed like this room was used strictly for business and she very much doubted that it was something the customers got to see. The table looked like it had been left in a state of mid-work, as if the owner would still come back to resume his trade. There were papers piled up on it, and what appeared to be two ledger books, their wide format hinted that they weren't regular books. Sandy perched herself on the chair and stared at the desk for a long moment before deciding to go through the paperwork. She was keenly aware of Altair watching her, and the longer his gaze lingered, the more nervous she became.

First thing first she ran her hands under the bottom of the desk to check for anything somehow attached underneath. The wood was rough, but there was nothing there. The table had no drawers either; it was a plain flat piece of wood with four legs. Then she turned to the things on the desk, the papers piled up were written in a tiny, eye-straining script that she wasn't going to try and read by the dim light of the oil lamps. Some looked like they were orders or maybe contracts. All of them were clearly written on some cheap paper that felt very rough to the touch. The inkwell was closed and the quill in the holder was from a gray bird, maybe a pigeon.

She turned her attention to only two books in the room. They were set one on top of another, almost buried in the loose papers. She picked up the first one and opened it, paging through it, squinting to see the tiny print. It seemed like an almost impossible amount was written unto the same pages. If the slaver kept these ledgers himself, he was greedy enough to do anything to save paper. Beyond the tiny characters, it still made limited sense to her.

"This is all coded," she stated. "The letters, the numbers- it's a very simple cipher, probably just enough to keep prying eyes out. I don't need to crack it to know that this is a ledger, the only thing it will give us, is leads on the sold abduction victims," she looked up. "Something tells me that the brotherhood doesn't go about recovering these sorts of victims."

"No, we don't."

"And this?" Sandy asked.

"They would have died if we didn't raid this place, and since it is convenient-" he stopped there.

Sandy shook her head and picked up the other book, it was bound in black leather and still smelled of the tanning process. The spine creaked as she opened it and even before she paged through it she knew what she would find. "Blank, damn it, I was hoping for anything, I was hoping for more vellum."

"You cannot win all the time."

Sandy eased back into the chair and stared at him for a long moment. "This coming from a man who refuses to lose," she stated. The silence lingered, but she noticed a faint grin appear on the assassin's face. Sandy got to her feet and approached him, placing her hand to his chest. The light of the oil lamps did not reach his eyes, the hood cast near perfect shadows, but even then she could tell that he was watching her closely.

"Master Altair?" a voice asked.

Sandy reacted as if shot in stepping back from the assassin and looking towards the doorway. One of Malik's men was there; she could tell that he had seen what had probably looked somewhat awkward from a different perspective. She busied herself at the table, the blank ledger held her interest, bound books of any kind were probably very expensive, she would be daft to leave one just lying around when it was essentially free for the taking. She knew that she could put it to decent use somehow; the actual usage could come to her later.

"What is it?" Altair asked.

"We have released the captives; however there is a slight problem. There is a child that is unable to walk, and she will not let any of the men near her without causing a commotion."

"Let me try and talk to her, she's probably just very scared. Children can be silly like that."

"You're done here?" Altair asked.

"I think so," Sandy replied.

"I will extinguish the lamps, go ahead Lady Informer," the other man volunteered.

"Thank you," Sandy smiled at the man, bowing her head as she brushed past him. She could feel Altair trailing her, his loaded gaze focused square on her back, but for the time being she ignored him in favor of the captives. Entering the main space of the warehouse, she could see the captives clearly for the first time. All of them were young women of various ages, but none were over the age of thirty, that much she could tell from their tattered rags and dirt-smudged faces. She tried to ignore the heavy scent of illness still hovering around the space, and underneath it all the scent of blood and other things. She just hoped there was nothing airborne; she probably didn't have the twelfth century immunity to handle some of the endemic diseases that were prevalent here.

Sandy ignored the looks she got from the captive women in favor of scanning the cages; inside one of them she saw the faint shadow of the child. She sat at the far back of the cage, and was staring back at her with a pair of eerily dark eyes. Like the rest of the captives she was dressed in rags and discerning her age exactly was difficult, but it was evident that the girl couldn't be older than twelve, probably closer to ten. Sandy approached, and when she crouched down to be at the child's eye level she noticed the bruises on her whole body, her arms and legs were the worst, and it looked like the slavers had at one point tightened a rope around her ankles so tight that it left a perfect purple impression. "Hello," Sandy greeted. The girl remained silent, watching her closely, blinking occasionally. "I'm not going to hurt you, can you talk?" Sandy asked. The girl stared, but after a long second she nodded her head hesitantly. Sandy put her hand on the child's head, running her fingers through filthy hair. "Its okay sweetheart, these men will not hurt you either. They are different from the other men."

"The big man killed some of the other men," the girl croaked.

"He won't hurt you, he'd never hurt a sweet little girl like you," Sandy urged. "Are you thirsty?" the girl nodded her head and Sandy reached for her water skin. The girl grabbed at it as if she hadn't touched water in days, opening the top with shaky fingers before tipping it so fast that some of the water escaped down either side of her chin and cheeks as she guzzled it. "Take it easy, you'll choke. You can have all of it if you want."

"We do not have the time for your cajoling her, Cassandra."

"We'll make the time!" Sandy shot back, glaring at Altair.

"He's scary," the girl muttered, lowering the skin and closing it.

"He's very busy, so he's a little impatient." Sandy replied, ruffling the girl's hair. "Can you really not walk?"

"My ankle hurts very much," the girl replied. Sandy set down the empty ledger and reached for the girl's legs.

"Which?" she asked.

The girl raised her right leg a little and Sandy took hold of that ankle, it was swollen and as she prodded it with careful fingers, the girl yelped in pain and whimpered. "Just checking to see if it's broken, but its not, they just tightened the rope on it too much. It will heal. You will have to get up and walk, honey. It will hurt, but you're a big girl, you can do it."

The girl nodded her head and ever so slowly got to her feet. Sandy could tell that she was in a lot more pain than just her ankle, wincing with every movement. "Ata girl! Come, give me your hand, we'll walk together. If I'm walking too fast, you just give my hand a tug." Picking up the ledger she got to her feet and offered the child her hand, which she took without any hesitation.

Sandy led the girl out of the cage and just beyond, the child tightened her hold on her arm as she stared at the different men around the room in turn.

"What now?" Sandy asked, looking at Altair.

"The men will escort the captives out of the district and into their own," Altair stated. Nods were about the room as the other men realized that they were just given orders. The little girl clinging to Sandy's arm tightened her hold and tugged at her sleeve.

"What is it honey?" Sandy glanced down.

"Scared," she whispered.

"Do you know where you live?" Sandy asked.

The girl nodded her head with bravado, "Mommy let me buy bread, so I know where we live."

Sandy shook her head, odds were that one of those bread trips was exactly when the little girl was napped by the slaver's men, but she had a feeling that if the mother was of any sanity, once the girl was back, she'd never be allowed to leave the house alone ever again. Sandy would have done the same if the girl had been hers. "We'll take you home," Sandy stated leading the child towards the ante-chamber. "You will lead, yes?" she asked looking at the girl.

"I will." the girl replied and stepped foreword, even as she limped on her swollen ankle, she did it with such bravado that Sandy very much doubted that the little girl fully understood the situation that she had just been in, the true scope of the danger. It was better this way, less trauma in the long run.

The night had closed fully on the city, the only people out now were the night guards, the streets were dark and deserted, it was even more eerie that before. Sandy walked with the girl clinging to her arm, Altair on her other side. As they crossed in the Christian district, the girl's mood rose a little. Sandy thought the child was a real trooper, despite the pain in her limbs she walked on her own without complaining or crying.

"We're close," the girl stated as she indicated a turn into a court and the two of them followed. At the last second she let go of Sandy's arm and half-ran-half-hobbled to the door of her house, knocking on it. Sandy could see a candle-light on the second storey. She drew close and knocked harder, dropping her hand to ruffle the girl's hair again. Inside the house they heard footsteps and the door creaked open, and then flew open.

"Oh God!"

"Mommy!" the girl squealed, leaping into her mother's arms.

Sandy stepped back and smiled as she watched the woman embrace her child, running her hands over the girl's body as if she wasn't sure it was really her child and not some sort of midnight phantom. Finally satisfied, and still pressing the girl to her chest, the woman looked up.

"Thank you, thank you- whoever you are."

"You are welcome ma'am."

"We have to go." Altair called from behind her, Sandy glanced back and watched him meld back into the shadows of the alley.

"You're the assassins the rumor speaks of, aren't you?" The woman asked in a low tone, as if afraid of being overheard by her own neighbors.

"No, ma'am. We're just a pair of Good Samaritans." Sandy replied, already moving away from the pair, raising her hood. Turning her back to the two and jogged back to Altair's side, letting the shadows consume her as well. She knew it was an awfully rude way to leave, but even she had a limit of what she considered safe. It was best no one saw the woman associate with the assassins; the city was still far from safe. Altair walked onward, but Sandy lingered out of sight in the alleys until she heard the door close, then she caught up with him.

"All's well that ends well," she stated. Altair remained silent as they walked, she could tell that he probably wasn't exactly keen on these sorts of displays for whatever reason, but couldn't speak against them either. She wrapped her arms around one of his and squeezed. "Let's go back; it's been a long day. More-so for you than me, but even I'm tired."

"You have a way with children," he started after a few moments of silence.

"It's not _that_ impressive," she replied. "Children are not adults, they think a little bit differently than we do. I personally think that children understand more than people give them credit for."

They returned to the Bureau without much incident other than dodging the night guards who seemed to be predictably still on edge after Talal's assassination. It seemed like the city had some sort of curfew in place, because other than the guards they hadn't seen anyone out past nightfall. Not even some poor laborer going to the well for the final bucket of the day after a long hard day of work. It seemed awfully strange to Sandy, after having lived in a sleepless metropolis for her whole life, a place where even in the dead of night there was activity.

She laid back on the carpet among the pillows, ready for bed, and she almost fell asleep when Altair joined her. "Back to Masyaf tomorrow?" she asked.

"That's the plan," he replied, working on the hidden straps holding his belt tight around his midsection.

"I guess we didn't talk about this with everything happening. While you were out doing what you do best, I wrote down what we know about this whole situation."

"And?" he asked, sitting down on the carpet.

"Its less than it seemed like it was when it was just in my head."

"Keep at it," he stated.

"You don't sound impressed," Sandy noted.

"I'm not; you are expecting to see something in a collection of loose facts. There is nothing there yet. Keep working at it." He pushed his hood off his head and eased back, lying flat on his back.

Sandy rolled unto her side, propping up on her right elbow to stare at him, "I plan to work on it. And I'll get to the bottom of it too- mark my words!" she assured, putting her left hand on his chest. Altair grinned; an expression that looked like the smile of the Cheshire cat to Sandy. Before she could move away, he grabbed the hand on his chest and gave her arm a yank. Sandy squeaked as she was pulled right over his chest. His other arm wrapped around her waist and Sandy found herself effectively pinned against his chest. She looked up and glared at him. "If that's your way of telling me to go to sleep, you didn't need to yank my arm out of its socket, words would have been fine."

"Did I? And would you have listened?"

"No, and no." Sandy replied calmly, the grin on his face widened and suddenly she realized that she had just conceded something without realizing what it was.

"Exactly," he stated. "I know you better than you think."

Sandy pouted and crossed her forearms over his chest, propping herself on her elbows, "Well then, Mr. Wiseass, what do you predict I'll do now?" she asked.

"Get us in trouble if Malik walks in with you on top of me."

"Get _you_ in trouble. I'm just an innocent girl," Sandy replied, leaning closer with each word, careful to not actually press down on his rib cage. She could tell that he could still breathe well enough when he inhaled deeply, her whole upper body rising an inch or two with the expansion of his ribs.

"You know full well I do not care what Malik says if he sees you like that. In fact, I'd love to see the expression on his face. He always said a woman would have to be insane to deal with me."

"Funny, a lot of people back at home call me crazy. He may be on to something. But thanks for telling me that you plan to use me as a convenient tool in your continuing brotherly fights."

"You know I ca- _treat_ you better than that."

Sandy's blood ran cold, her ears did not miss the fact that for the first time since she had known him, Altair had actually tripped up, he had meant to use a word other than 'treat', but he tripped over it. Her heart was suddenly beating faster, he cared? How much? Sandy had to beat down those crazy thoughts. "Do you?" she asked.

"You're going to refute the fact that I treat you better?" he asked with a chilled voice.

Sandy shook her head and placed a hand over his chest, "you do treat me better. I'm not going to deny that, but I think I now see a chink in your armor, superman. You _care_."

"Does that change anything between us?" he asked.

Sandy moved away, sitting back on her knees, placing her hands in her lap. It didn't need to be said that the answer to that depended on the degree of care there. She cared for him too, maybe more than she should given the circumstances, there was a powerful and undeniable attraction there, but there was also friendship. She knew this man, she liked to think that she knew his quirks, knew his little habits, she liked to think that she could read his moods. It seemed that it swung both ways, he seemed to know her well enough as well, but was that enough? She didn't want to ruin the friendship on the expression of attraction, yet some part of her said that this was the thing a lot of people talked about when they listed things they needed. This was the connection, the something more than just attraction. Maybe their strong friendship could pull them through; all she had to do was throw in all her chips on one final round of cards. "It can," she stated finally.

He sat up as well; raising his left hand was to the back of her neck now, fingers playing with her hair. Sandy turned to look him in the eye as she braced for whatever chaos that could come out of this. It was crunch time; somehow she knew that she had a chance to change things if she wanted to. She would have expected to feel pressured, but there was no pressure, no expectations. Altair wasn't even trying to convince her one way or the other, he was leaving the decision entirely for her to make. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and pondered. He had proven himself so much different from the others already, maybe in this way he would be different too, right? He wasn't shallow and self-centered, and he didn't want some unattainable ideal like the others. He knew her flaws and yet there he was, no pressure, no strings, somehow that single act alone felt more important than all the poetics in the world.

It was as if her body had a mind of its own that she felt herself draw closer to him, raising her hands to his shoulders. With each fraction of an inch some panic bell in her brain insisted on ringing louder and louder in warning against doing something stupid. The fingers of his left hand ghosted over her ear as they slid down her jaw to her chin, the calluses on his fingertips made her shiver a little bit, and despite the fact that he was missing one, it didn't feel at all strange. At the first touch of their lips Sandy almost ran for it, but after a moment some part of her said this was right. His hand cupped her chin and drew her closer, deepening the feather light kiss one degree at a time. Sandy fisted his tunic and tried to keep calm, and just when her breath was beginning to run out, the kiss ended, he simply pulled away. She kept her eyes closed as her heart and mind raced. She wanted the feelings to linger- she wanted to commit this to memory- and at the same time that she just wanted to disappear into the floor.

* * *

**The Tidbits Corner:**

Cheshire Cat: An allusion to the smile of the trickster cat from Lewis Carroll's _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_.

On Politics: Perhaps this does not need explaining, but just in case. I wanted to clarify the politics roiled between the various groups of Crusaders. When Maria said that Richard can give William more problems than he can give the Templars, that is because strictly speaking at this time, the Templars had a papal letter that made them exempt from a lot of the secular taxes/laws. In effect the Knights Templar were responsible to the Church and the Pope's alone. Though Richard could still ask for things on similar term of king asking another king who is his ally, in effect Robert would be like a king without land, and I will say that loosely. Politics are a lot more complex in this time period than I want to type here.

**Director's Notes:**

I guess I should apologize for making you wait, but I think that the ending more than makes up for it. I am having horrible time keeping up with all the various conflicting needs of my university studies, and now that I'm in the thick of the plot, I need to pay more attention to the details, to avoid the dreaded plot holes.

On another note, I did finally find a song for Robert/Maria that very oddly feels right for them. I would suggest that if people are interested, they go to Youtube and look up Enigma's _Sadeness_. It requires a little bit on explanation, for one the lyrics is mostly in French, so looking up a translation for those who do not speak French might be helpful. But mostly the song is on the theme of temptation, I think that its sensuous music, combined with the Gregorian chanting is rather appropriate. Gregorian chanting was the practically the main music of Catholic religious devotion in medieval times. Given that the Templars were a semi-monastic order, it seemed to fit.


	27. Of Changes Seen and Not

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXVII:**__ Of Changes Seen and Not_

Sandy didn't know when she managed to get some sleep that night, but morning came too quickly for her to have been awake for the odd seven hours. She slowly came into awareness in the usual manner, sleeping nestled to Altair's side, head resting on his shoulder, and arm slung high over his chest, fingers resting over his sternum where she could just barely feel the strong rhythmic beating of his heart. Somewhere in the background she could hear some sort of bird chirping, and cracking open one eye she noticed that it was definitely too light to be just after the dawn.

"Good morning," she stated, knowing for a fact that he was awake. She was going to momentarily ignore that he had been watching her sleep at that. Somehow it didn't feel all that creepy coming from him. Somehow after what happened the previous evening, she felt like the dimension of their relationship changed. The precise form of the change was undefined yet, she wanted to think that they had crossed that thin line between friends and more, but just how much more remained to be defined. Sandy moved, sitting up and crossing her legs, putting her hands on her ankles.

Altair sat up and spared her only the briefest of looks before he reached for his belt. She knew better than to ask what was going on, they would be leaving for Masyaf today in all likelihood. She decided that they had to discuss what happened the evening before and how it affected things, but now was neither the time nor place for that. Some part of her dreaded the thought of the discussion, a demon in the back of her mind insisted that one kiss meant nothing. That it was probably just heat of the moment, they had been close to it a number of times before, but always interrupted. From there they moved on without talking about it. This was probably just another facet of an increasingly unhealthy relationship that began messed up from night one. Somehow her mind was willing to write it off like that, it was her heart that said that the mind was wrong. Altair was not the type to act like that, the women in the kitchens spoke of him never so much as looking at one of them, so for him to kiss her like that he had to feel something. She knew him well enough on her own to know that he was decidedly not driven by base urges. She wouldn't call him a gentleman, it would be laughable to call an assassin a gentleman, but he acted almost like one around her. They would simply have to define where the line fell from now on, how things changed. There was no great urge to do that right at that moment; she was not selfish enough to think that his preoccupations were more important than getting ready for their return to Masyaf. Furthermore, she wanted some time to decide what she would say to him anyways.

Sandy reached for her cloak and got up, flicking it out to remove any dust before tossing around herself, slipping her arms into the sleeves with a single efficient move. "Breakfast and then we hit the road!" she declared with a cheerful falsetto. "I have a feeling its going to be a good day." Without looking back at Altair she marched a bell line into the bureau to find Malik and the aforementioned breakfast. She would do anything to bury the nervous haunting thoughts circulating in the back of her head at the moment. In the kitchen she spotted Malik who was just getting started on his breakfast, "Good morning," She greeted.

"Good morning." He stated much more calmly, eyebrow rising in question as she sat down at the table. "Did I miss something?" he asked.

Sandy paused, "Miss something? No nothing. Why would you think that?"

"You are more cheerful than usual."

"I just woke up on the right side of the bed. That's all."

"Given how you sleep, I was not aware there was a wrong side," Malik murmured around his raised cup of tea.

Sandy laughed, unable to contain her reaction. "I totally walked into that one, didn't I?" she asked amidst the chuckles. "Well I'm in a good mood, and that's that. I mean to enjoy it while I can, because I just know something will rain on my parade eventually." So maybe she was a little too chipper, but being chipper is the only way she knew how to suppress a case of nerves this bad. Still, she decided it was best to dial down the happiness, before she got herself mistaken to being 'high on crack' or whatever other thing people in this age used to get high on.

Malik poured himself another cup of tea, and then she became keenly aware of his gaze lingering on her. A crazy part of her feared that Malik knew what had happened between Altair and her the night before. She had to consciously squelch down the nerves, because if he didn't know already a guilty look now would tell him that something was up. The man was a spymaster by reputation, she was sure that entailed a creepy ability to read people. She had to assure herself that what had happened the previous night had not been a crime, just a small breach of professional protocol, but what people did not know could not hurt them. She was sure that the rule about fraternization was a bit of a slope, if no one found out about an assassin having an affair with an informant, then they were probably under control and not endangering anyone. If they were found out then there was no control, and they were a hazard to someone, in which case it was a good idea to forbid it. She was going to ignore the part about it being a very sound professional conduct point to not getting emotionally involved with someone you work with. There were hundreds of ways in which things could go horribly, horribly wrong if something did not work out. Not many people were like her, unable to hold a grudge for long.

Her train of thinking was promptly derailed by Altair's arrival in the kitchen, fully armed and ready. Malik switched gears and after that point she quickly found herself almost forgotten, hiding a grin around a spoon, when a friendly argument broke out between the two men.

Hours after they had set off, Sandy realized that she was stiff as a ramrod in the saddle. For the first time in weeks she felt saddle sore and had to consciously will herself to relax. After a number of trips through Galilee, the rocks had lost their interest and she no longer had the same enthusiasm for the scenery. Instead of focusing on the rocks, she focused on any sign of movement among them. The heat of the afternoon was such that nothing seemed to breathe, let alone move, and yet Talimar and Nyx made steady progress weaving over the rough terrain. Still, some part of her was tense, expecting, almost willing something to happen to break the proverbial ice. As hours passed she began to dread what she knew had to happen inevitably.

They stopped for the night just north of the Sea of Galilee, finding a small corner where the rocks had been hewn out into an artificial valley. There was a village nearby and that meant that they got more water to adequately rest the horses. They had their dinner of rations even before the sun had fully vanished over the horizon. The early August evening was nearly as sweltering as the day had been, and the stones around them seemed to magnify the feeling with the radiated heat. When the cold night wind would begin to blow, the heat of the rocks would become a welcome thing. Sandy sat on a big rock and watched the sky change colors slowly.

When night fell and sitting on the rock meant that she was being buffeted by the night wind directly, she moved to sit near Altair. He had set up a sleeping palette in the corner that should remain shielded from the wind unless it fully reversed. Sandy doubted that, the Mediterranean was close enough that come night, the land breeze would prevail. Sandy swallowed her tongue and knew that she had to talk to Altair about what happened; there was no way to avoid it. She took a deep breath before beginning, "Altair we have to talk." It was somewhat cliché, but she wasn't going for oratorship awards.

"About?" he asked.

"About last night, you know- _that_." She waved her hand for emphasis; her nerves would not let her calm down long enough to say exactly what needed to be said without dithering about. "The kiss." She continued shakily, "I guess what it means still haunts me. You know- that whole thing is a violation of that one rule- and-"

"You're babbling."

"You're silent, I get nervous," she replied bluntly.

"Is the rule the only thing bothering you?" Altair asked.

Sandy shook her head slowly, "No, the rule is just one of those things. I guess it's the fact that I just don't know where it's going." She tried to explain, but it was difficult. She simply didn't know what he felt about her, especially after what had happened. Somehow she didn't think that talking about feelings with a man like Altair was possible, his were so guarded that she did not want to feel like she was invading. She also didn't want to raise her hopes into thinking that he felt anything either. If she tried, she could write off one kiss as just one of those crazy moments and believe that stranger things have happened. She didn't want to fall into the trap of hopeless unrequited affection. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and froze, had he been staring at her all along? It sure seemed like it, the look in those abyssal eyes of his was very serious, but there was something else in it. "Ugh… I think I'm being ridiculous again." She laughed nervously. "I mean- I-"

"No, you're just bad at reading me."

"Am not! Just that look- it's multipurpose. When you give it to some poor shmoe that draws a blade it means he's dead meat, and when you give it to Malik it means you're annoyed. In either case it doesn't bode well, and by extension whenever you give it me-" she didn't get to finish as he placed his hand on her cheek to silence her. Sandy realized she babbled when she was nervous, it was one of those ticks of her, but he seemed to have the capacity to reduce her to babbling in seven words or less. Still the touch lingered and Altair remained silent, which made her grow ever more nervous, soon enough she knew that using her tongue to form coherent sounds of any kind was going to be very difficult. She took his hand and removed it from her face, "I understand-" she muttered.

"I'm still waiting to hear what is really bothering you, since it is not that rule."

That startled Sandy enough into raising both her eyebrows in surprise, a second later she realized that she was probably making a good impression of a fish out of water, but at that point she didn't care. It seemed like she had dismally misread the man sitting next to her just as he had said. Dully noted, she decided, from now on she'd keep a closer eye on that look, apparently it really could mean just about anything. "It's kind of embarrassing, but I don't have a good track record with men." She turned away, pulling up her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "I'm here and all, in this time- no. That's not quite it. Yes I'm here- but it not bothering me as much as it used to, now it's just a little. What really bothers me is-" she slipped her hands into her sleeves in an effort to keep the nervousness hidden. "This is a big issue between us, and all- we really never talked about it. Last night wasn't the first time that mood happened, it was just the first time that nothing interrupted it."

Silence lingered and Sandy rested her chin on her knees so she couldn't see his expression in response to her words. She didn't want him to see her own expression at that moment, it was undoubtedly bad. Her ear registered a faint sound of clinking metal, and next thing she knew Altair had put his hands on her shoulders. The warmth she felt radiating through her clothing was almost burning at that moment, together with the fact that his hands were big enough to cover her whole shoulders it caused her face to heat up rapidly. His hands moved down her arms and before she could even form a protest, she found herself being pulled back into his embrace.

"Altair," she began, warningly. He wrapped his arms around her waist and as awkward as it was to be sitting like that, with her back pressed against his chest and her legs thrown to the side, she felt her face getting hotter and hotter. "What are you doing?" she wondered. His breath on her neck made her jump, she would've moved away if she could, but his arms around her waist arrested all movement.

"Cassandra."

Sandy stilled instantly, "What is it?" she asked.

"Do you have something against- _this_?" he asked.

"If by _this_ you mean this attraction there-" she gulped "I guess I don't. I'm sure you're not exactly oblivious that you're a very _attractive_ man."

He chuckled against her ear, "then you should know how I see you."

Sandy smiled and placed her hands on top of his, "so where does that put us?" she wondered.

"Does it have to put us somewhere?"

"No, but I guess- I just want to know where _this_ is going."

"Always so eager to plan things out." He commented.

"Says a man who risks his life routinely without a plan," Sandy sniped back, amusement in her voice. Altair tightened his arms around her waist and Sandy felt one of the hilts of his throwing knives poking into her side. "Alright, alright!" she protested. His hold eased his grip and let her pull away slightly, "I guess what you're trying to say is- take things one step at a time, and see where it goes?" she asked.

He didn't reply immediately, and even as the seconds ticked away the silence remained. It seemed for a moment that the whole world had paused, but then the wind was blowing through the rocks again, and she smiled and relaxed in his grip. Sandy knew the man enough to know that when he spoke up at these times, he was actually in disagreement with something. Contemplating what he had just slipped out made her feel a little bit better; the physical attraction had been defined and acknowledged. She could live with that, it didn't mean that things had to go from there. Sitting there, being embraced by Altair like that felt more precious than anything. She wasn't going to ask for more, because she wasn't sure that she was able to give more.

Two evenings hence the sight of the stone arches marking the boundary of Masyaf's watched region were a sight for sore eyes. Riding underneath them already made Sandy feel a little bit better than the previous days. It was eerie of how easily they had shifted to a new level in their relationship. She even surprised herself with how easy it was to show him a little more affection and not feel the slightest bit of embarrassment or discomfort. Even better, she knew that she didn't have to act like a lovesick twit to show him that she cared, she could just be herself. There was a certain freedom in that feeling of no pretenses and nothing hidden.

It felt like a blink of an eye that they were at the gates of the village and dismounting. Altair made his way up to the fortress and Sandy followed as usual a quarter of a step behind him. The sounds coming from the courtyard of the castle were familiar and comforting now. Her ears had already begun to attune to the frequencies of the various weapons. Clashing swords were louder than knives and the other bladed weapons that the assassins used. The murmur of conversation and the occasional ranked assassin shouting orders at a bumbling trainee, all of that was familiar and comforting, and truly it felt good to be back.

He eyes scanned for a pair that she would've very much liked to greet, she would've thought that picking out a man of Tony's size wouldn't be difficult, but if he had his hood up against the fading sun, he had a perfect cloak in the seat of white. Suddenly there was an uproar from the arena. Faisal was in the rink with another trainee at his feet. The fifteen year old had just won another of his matches, and his being there meant that Tony was somewhere in the crowd. She drifted towards the rink and spotted him, Tony stood some inches over everyone else, his hood was up, and his hand was resting on the pommel of his sword as usual. It was such an idiosyncratic gesture that she should have been looking for it.

She grinned and skirted around the group gathered around the rink, pushing through until she could say her hand on Tony's arm. "Good evening," she said low enough that only he could hear her. The reaction was instantaneous, Tony looked down and his expression lit up.

"Welcome back _senorita_." He greeted.

"Thank you." She smiled and turned to rink, Faisal had noticed her arrival as well, and she waved her hand in a greeting and gave him a smile. He nodded his head in return and then turned back to his opponent, who was getting to his feet again.

"He's showing them a new technique I taught him," Tony noted.

"He's definitely getting better," Sandy agreed. "As far as teachers go, you're the best thing that happened to him."

"I'm not taking all the credit. I think that one time you beat him helped too."

"Hah- Maybe. Maybe he was insulted enough about being beaten by a girl that he's working harder."

"He hadn't thought of that in a long time," Tony replied.

Sandy was about to reply when she felt a familiar weight settle on her shoulder. "Dinner is near," he announced.

"Ah right, thanks Altair," she glanced up at him and smiled even wider.

"You know where to find me." He stated.

Sandy nodded, and before she could actually say anything he simply turned around and walked away. She watched him go until the crowd barred her line of sight, then shaking her head she turned back to Tony. "It's been a long day; I have some things to do before dinner. I will see you- in the usual place?" she asked.

"Of course," Tony replied.

Sandy patted his arm and walked off; the other assassins let her pass without barring her path.

After dinner Sandy followed Tony out into the courtyard. It wasn't quite dark yet, so she didn't feel like sleeping yet. The August evening was cool, and at the elevation of the fortress there was a breeze blowing, sweeping pleasantly through the courtyard. They had not been the first to exit the dinning hall so the courtyard was quite occupied with some of the men. It was at this time, with the daily training for the rookies done, that the ranked assassins were sharpening their skills. Sandy didn't blame the men for exercising; there was little other entertainment in this time.

"You're always watching these matches, why is that?" Antonio wondered.

"I learn from them. Believe it or not, Tony, but I have always been able to pick up skills by watching people perform them. I watch the other Assassins because there is much to learn, if your tactics are geared at handling armored, skilled men like the crusaders then- for my own safety I should pick up a trick or two."

"You do not trust Altair?" Antonio asked.

"I do Tony, implicitly-"

"She does not want to be a _damsel in distress_."

Sandy turned and grinned at Altair, "How long have you been eavesdropping?" she asked.

"Long enough," he replied.

"Oh darn, that means you heard me confess my undying love to Tony," Sandy grinned and placed her hands on her hips.

Altair spared her a faint grin, "do not joke about that, I may take it seriously."

"Hey!" Faisal jumped in, getting between Altair and Sandy, "I want another match!"

Sandy glared at the youth, but then her expression softened, there was no use expecting him to understand the moment they were having. Truthfully it was a good thing that he had interrupted it, after all it wouldn't do for her to be flirting with Altair in Tony's presence. She reached out and put her hand on the adolescent's head, ruffling his hair intentionally in a patronizing manner. "Someone's eager to lose," she stated.

"I've improved."

"So have I, kiddo." She replied in all seriousness. "Watch and learn kid, watch and learn!" Sandy led him towards the empty rink. The senior assassins rarely used it among themselves at this time of the evening, but she figured she was in a good enough a mood for a small episode of show and tell. If the others watched, it would do them good to see her in action occasionally, a reminder that she was not just a decoration.

"You say you do not train her?" Tony asked.

Altair shifted his weight, watching from a distance as Cassandra and the rookie got ready for their little match. "Even if I did she wouldn't be able to use our methods. There is no strength in her frame, just speed. One on one she can surprise an opponent and take them down, but she would never last in an uneven fight."

The two in the arena were circling each other, Cassandra was smiling mischievously. Both her knives were out, while Faisal had lapsed to his single-knife stances that he knew best. Altair did not expect him to ever master a sword, he had started learning it much too late.

"Her stance is more confident. She's not watching Faisal, but his knife and feet," Tony noted.

"Jamal had horrible footwork, he taught the boy to give away his intentions," Altair added.

The crowd was gathering around the arena now, some of the other men had broken off their own sparring in order to watch. Faisal made the first move with a swift and high lunge, but his thrust was batted away, the blade of his knife grinding against the metal plates on the back of Cassandra's armguard. She responded with her own sweep, which he dodged, much to his due credit.

"You definitly got better, before that one would've had you." She encouraged.

"You're using both knives against me, I'd say that's unfair, but you're a girl, so it evens-" Faisal didn't get to finish, Cassandra lunged at him, her smile taking on a predatory edge. Her blades flashed, one nicking the boy's sleeve as he circled her, barely dodging the second blade at all. Suddenly she ducked, putting her hands on the ground as she swept out with her foot, the move caught Faisal off guard, his feet were swept out right from under him, sending him sprawling.

"Point to me, boy. You're still thinking stiffly," she jeered.

"She does not realize that she's more nimble than he is," one of the men nearby murmured to his companion.

"Just like a little monkey." The other replied, clearly amused at his derived comparison.

"Whoever taught her to fight was a maverick," the first agreed.

Altair folded his arms over his chest as he watched. Faisal had gotten to his feet again, and the circling resumed. It was then he noticed that Cassandra's whole stance had shifted; she was making wider, assured steps. Still, they were quick and cat-like; her gaze flickered between Faisal's knife and his feet. This was a new confidence that he had not seen before. Her last actual fight had been the Templar, and that time she had held back, unsure and cautious. With Faisal there was none of that uncertainty, she knew she was above his skill and could easily defeat him. With that knowledge, she was harrying the youth into her traps, controlling the battle by playing on his inexperience.

"C'mon, short stuff. Put up a fight. I'm dying of boredom over here," Sandy called.

Faisal reacted exactly as she probably wanted him to; he lunged recklessly, leaving himself wide open. Altair knew Cassandra had won when she sidestepped the lunge effortlessly, her cloak billowing like a sail on the breeze as she spun out of the way. In the same movement her response was sharp whack to the boy's back with the open palm of her hand, sending the youth sprawling again. Had her knife been there, he would've been stabbed in the kidney.

"You have to learn not to take the bait kiddo. Sometimes your opponents will intentionally aim below the belt with words," she circled the boy, her knives held in one hand. Then her expression brightened into a brilliant smile that could've lit up the courtyard. "And that's two out of three," she added.

"You really do fight dirty," the boy muttered.

"Wrong. I fight to _survive_."

Faisal stared at the woman for a long moment before taking her offered hand and letting her pull him up to his feet.

Altair let his arms drop to his sides as he approached the rink. It was then his eyes caught the sight of a figure in the crowd, one of the initiates, the sort of untried talent that was more often than not assigned to watch a gate. The youth jumped the short fence cordoning the rink and approached.

"You must thinking beating him is an achievement _Lady Informant_." He sneered, "But let us see how you fare against someone slightly more senior. I think we'd all like to see whether or not you actually learned anything more than arrogance from _Master Altair_."

Altair watched Sandy's expression, the smile remained on her face but the expression's tone changed dramatically. The amusement was no longer in her eyes, the smile was hollow, an obfuscating mask, and he could tell that the youth had angered her.

"You better know what you're getting yourself into, rookie," Tony warned.

"How strong can she be?" The youth stated with an amused and sarcastic lilt in his voice.

A murmur went through the crowd, something that Altair liked less by the second. The juniors in the ranks were amused at the prospect, while the seniors were contemplating the odds of Cassandra's win. Overall no one was even remotely considering the woman in question. This had turned into a spectacle to all the men present, the amusement of seeing a curiosity like Cassandra fight someone a little tougher than Faisal. It showed just how low an opinion everyone had of her, and for the first time in his life Altair felt bothered about something. Still, his hands were tied; he couldn't interfere. He knew full well that were he to step in now, it would look like he was shielding his overly-arrogant student from a fight that even he didn't think she could win. The crowd would be in uproarious laughter for a week and Cassandra would never forgive him. The thought that she couldn't handle the initiate couldn't be further from the truth. He knew that if she set her mind to it, she would put the initiate in his place.

"Calm down, all of you!" a stern voice ordered.

Altair turned his head and spotted another of the elites, a man in his late fifties that wore a black cloak over his white tunic. He was one of the retired elites, a rank that only few elites lived to see. A quieter murmur went through the crowd and a few of the higher ranking men pulled away.

"She may be younger than most of you present, but she wears the cloth of the brotherhood." The man continued.

Altair turned his eyes back to the rink; Sandy's smile wavered before returning in full force, bright and blinding, but utterly fake. Altair knew that she was not about to be patronized by someone she did not even know. Then the cloak fell from her shoulders as she turned to the elder assassin, she bowed her head in respect to him as she spoke. "Thank you, sir, but I much rather not be respected solely for a piece of cloth I wear." She straightened and stared the man in the eye. "Not when I am quite capable of pushing that one's smug face right into the dirt." She pointed a finger at the initiate without even looking at him.

Altair saw the elder assassin grin, amused by her declaration. When his eyes flicked to the initiate to gage his reaction he saw the youth reach for a weapon. The youth didn't shout or give away his intention, his position behind the woman gave him an advantage and the youth knew it. Altair put his foot on the rink fence to jump it when he saw Cassandra's head cock to the side a little. Had she heard the knife drawn? In that split second, the youth charged. She moved, turning on the balls of her feet, flicking her cloak. The billow of the material blinded her opponent and the next instant the cloak was over the initiate's head, his chin caught in the hood. Sandy rolled the material around her fist and gave it a hard yank. Like a fish trapped in a net, the initiate was pulled backwards off his feet, his weapon dropped to the ground as he reached out, fervently grasping at nothing but empty air. He landed hard, the cloak slipping off his head. The impact stunned him long enough that before he could budge Cassandra had him by the throat, knee planted into his abdomen and her other hand raised high, knife pointed at her victim's heart. There was a moment of silence as the cloak landed on the ground, stirring up dust.

"So, how strong am I?" Sandy asked coolly.

The initiate opened his mouth to say something, but then his eyes focused on the knife and he thought better of it.

Altair stepped back from the fence, he had been ready to jump in to protect Cassandra from the overly eager initiate, but it seemed like she did not need his help at all putting the youth in his place. The look in her eyes burned with pride, determination, and confidence, something that Altair had never seen before. It brought a new fierceness to her whole being. He couldn't help but grin at this new development. Cassandra was becoming quite the force to be reckoned with, in that moment he felt oddly proud of her.

"Let him go now, I think he learned his lesson." The eldest elite spoke again. "I'm sure everyone here learned _something_ from this."

Altair glanced over just in time to catch the man's eye. Then he gaze snapped back to Cassandra as she rose to her feet and folded away her knife, tucking it back into her brace before she retrieved her cloak and clapped the dust out of it.

"Next one who thinks he can insult Lady Cassandra will have to go through me!" Antonio declared, folding his arms over his chest.

Cassandra shrugged her cloak back on and raised her hood, the glare she gave the Spaniard from the shadow of the garment made Altair glad that he had trusted her enough to handle the situation on her own.

Sandy sighed and stepped over the rink's fence and approached Altair. "If I had known this would be how things would go, I would've fought Faisal in the gardens."

"Yes, it is better to keep private affairs there," Altair agreed.

Sandy grinned and touched his upper arm as she moved past him, she wanted to go and hide in some hole for the rest of the evening. Let the situation cool down and the crowds find something else to gawp about. She felt more than one set of eyes on her back and she didn't like that feeling one little bit. Then there were two sets of clinking behind her back, from the frequency and rhythm she knew it was Altair and Tony. A set of rushing footfalls told her that Faisal had joined the trailing crew. Somehow she felt better, knowing that they were right behind her.

"Another night, another instance of me making an ass of myself in public," she commented ruefully.

"Still, that move you used was impressive," Tony remarked.

"You held back against me!" Faisal accused, finishing his teacher's statement.

"Yes, I did Faisal, but I didn't want to hurt you. You're kinda like the annoying little brother I never had. I'm also glad I didn't break that other guy's neck."

"My neck is glad to have avoided that," Faisal added quietly.

"Knowing how to improvise and use anything as a weapon is a useful skill, Faisal. Something to ponder on," Sandy added.

"Sounds complicated," Faisal muttered.

"It becomes an instinct after a while, like breathing."

"Still sounds complicated."

"Think about it. Now I have half a mind to let this all blow over. I'll go have a bath." She smiled apologetically and then made her escape, ascending the stairs rapidly. She didn't care how awkward things looked at the moment, she wasn't comfortable right now, and the sooner she slept this whole thing off, the sooner she'd be back in her own comfort zone. Never the less she took caution that she wasn't seen fleeting into Altair's quarters, if she was spotted now things would rapidly go from very awkward to embarrassment on the epic scale. Maybe if she hid an hour or two in the room, waiting for the evening crowd to begin turning in for the night, she might escape more misfortune.

Crossing the room she shed her cloak and draped it over the chair, her braces and knives were discarded on the table. She rubbed her wrists and it was then that the door opened behind her. It closed quietly and the footsteps crossed the room, stopping behind her.

"You're running again," he stated quietly.

"Frankly, yes." Sandy replied. "Don't lecture me Altair; I know my faults."

There was a scrape as he set his sword against the wall and before Sandy could move, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her back against his frame. "You were right to show that initiate where he stood."

She relaxed against his frame, "Maybe. Still, I don't understand why so many have so much of a bone to pick with me. What did I do?"

"They think I'm training you," Altair replied.

"Are they jealous or something?" Sandy asked.

She almost jumped out of her skin when he ducked lower to nuzzle her neck. "That's precisely it," he whispered. "I've never taken a student and I do not plan to, you do not need my help either, but to them- they're all dying to be in your position."

"Egoistic much?" Sandy asked.

Altair chuckled against her ear, "since when is the truth considered egoism, hmm?"

"Since you said it," she replied, trying to keep herself still, which was proving difficult as his affections turned to light kisses. She could tell he was smiling through the action; it brought a smile to her own face. However instead of letting him get any bolder, she put her hands on his and tried to pry them off, but he merely grabbed hold of hers and kept her from moving. Somehow she knew she should've been panicking, but the thought seemed ridiculous. He wouldn't do anything past a little bit of whatever he was doing, would he?

"C'mon, let go of me. I really need a bath."

Just like that he let go, allowing her to move toward her trunk to get her things. She couldn't help but fumble with them as she heard the sounds of him shedding his arsenal. Some part of her was very nervous. The trip to Jerusalem changed the dimensions of their relationship irrevocably, they had acknowledged that there was a very powerful attraction between them, and it seemed like he was very much interested in knowing where it would go. She should've been afraid, before what this strange polar shift the thought of something like that would've had her running for the hills, or at least made her capitally uncomfortable. However there was none of it now, when he had been so close it felt good to be getting his attention, at the risk of sounding selfish, she wanted his attention.

"No berating me for inappropriate behavior? No accusations of scandal-mongering?" he asked, feinting surprise.

"Since when do you care?" she shot back.

"I don't, but your shyness is amusing."

"You're a debaucher."

"Well that's a new one," he murmured, amused nevertheless.

Sandy got to her feet with her things, sparing him a chilled look as she passed him toward the door. "Lead me not into temptation, Altair." She spoke in a sing-song voice as she opened the door and slipped out. "I can find the way myself," she whispered to herself when the door closed behind her.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing Much

**Director's Notes:**

Woo! It's good to be back! My exams are done and I'm a free jailbird! These last couple months took way too much out of me… but I'm back! Thank you everyone for sticking around and hopefully not losing much faith in CT during my egregious hiatus. I know the wait has been long, and hopefully this chapter will more than make up for it, but if its not enough, then it's just the beginning. This is what I would begin calling the second act of the fic, the midpoint… the next three targets will bring a bunch of changes, which will lead to the third act and the major reworks I came up with during my hiatus. It will probably take another chapter or two before I'm firing on all cylinders again, getting into the routine again, but I'm definitely back.


	28. The Sage of Masyaf

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXVIII:**_ _The Sage of Masyaf_

Sandy found company in the baths in the form of Miriam and Rahel. One look at Miriam and the way her whole expression lit up when she arrived told Sandy that something was up. Thirty seconds didn't pass before she was enlightened that Miriam thought she was pregnant, she only wanted to wait another week to know for sure. Cassandra could do little more than wish her the best, because she knew how dangerous pregnancy and labor would be in this time. Miriam then swept her into a half an hour discussion on which would be better for a first child, a boy or a girl. It surprised Sandy, as she would've though that a boy would always be preferable in this time. Then again, the father was an assassin; the boy's destiny would be decided even before he was conceived.

Rahel, growing quite possibly slight envious of the older woman then shifted the conversation to a discussion on men, namely one of the initiates who had been showing her attention as of late. Sandy listened to her talk as she washed her hair. The sixteen year old wanted the opinion of someone who was more confident with men as to what to do. Sandy didn't have the heart to tell her that she was talking to the wrong person. She was going to ignore the unpleasant implication in the subtext, Rahel had said 'confident' in such a manner that Sandy almost thought she was insinuating something.

Miriam, quite possibly feeling her discomfort at Rahel's choice of topic and poorer yet choice of words, turned all attention back to herself when she boldly declared that she wanted to talk about her 'protégé's newest accomplishment. "We heard what happened in the rink, you really do know how to draw the attention of the men," She added.

"I'm entertainment to them. I can't dance and sing, but I still amuse them," Sandy shrugged as she rubbed at the skin of her neck with her washcloth. "I'm half convinced that they also enjoy the sheer novelty of a woman who knows how to fight. Half of them probably don't see me as a woman at all."

"And yet we hear Antonio is positively smitten with you," Rahel slipped in, sounding somewhat annoyed.

Sandy paused in her ritual and hung her head and tried not to think about that one. She couldn't let these two think that she was flirting with Tony because of some hidden romance, because there was nothing between them and she did not want to use Antonio like that. Conversely, she couldn't tell them that Antonio had no chance because invariably these two would ask if someone else had her attention. She wanted to keep the changing nature of her relationship with Altair a tighter secret than the fact that she had been sleeping in his quarters all along. Combined the two would convince everyone that she was a harlot, and once that got out and about in the scuttlebutt, she could kiss whatever respect she did have goodbye. She had to think of Fatima who would probably consider her the worst sort of traitor, a backstabber. She had encouraged Fatima to speak to Altair on a number of occasions; it would look like she went behind the girl's back, and Sandy wouldn't blame the girl for hating her guts. If she ever had to tell Fatima about her relationship with Altair, she wanted it to happen on better terms, to let the girl off easy. "Let's just say that I will sooner become an old maid than marry as it stands right now. The situation is complicated and I'm an informant, Tony and I- it wouldn't work." She finally spoke, returning to her washing, reaching for another bucket of water.

"You could always denounce your position," Rahel supplied as if it was the most elementary thing in the world.

Sandy spared her a look that the girl did not see because she was looking at Miriam, waiting for the older woman to agree with her. Sandy went back to her washing, no use expecting more from Rahel, she wasn't going to explain to her that such a thing would be the absolutely _last_ thing she would do. Denouncing the position to become involved with anyone, she would be admitting that she couldn't cut it as an informant. It would be seen as her returning to a closed gender role of wife and baby factory, she would rather chew off her limbs than do that. In her mind she could do both with only mild accommodations and compromises, but she knew there was no use preaching to the men, they would never change their views. Failing to change them, she was willing to live her life as Queen Elizabeth had, as a solitary rock in a sea of men who said it couldn't be done.

"She's committed to her work, Rahel, leave her be. Perhaps it is better this way; they say Suleiman knows talent when he sees it."

"Suleiman?" Sandy asked, looking up.

"Oh you did not know? Who do you think was that man who stepped in? My husband told me what happened."

"I honestly did not know, I mean I know that he had to be pretty high up, just by his clothing-" Sandy replied.

Miriam was shaking her head in disbelief, "Altair really taught you nothing." she spoke to herself, and then turning to Sandy she continued in a serious tone that was never the less full of her typical pride at knowing something juicy. "That man is the elder of two brothers who were the best from the previous generation, next to Al Mualim he is the wisest, and some say the next in line to become the master."

Sandy blinked as the information sank in; she should have known that the respect shown to that man had not been just out of rank. In fact, it made sense; they respected him for another reason. There had been a number of times when she had seen that rank among the men was not the absolute everything, reputation counted for something too.

Miriam, unaware of her confusion went on with her narrative, "What was it now? Fifteen years ago that Salah ad-Din had tried in vain to siege Masyaf? They say Suleiman was ordered to sneak into his camp in the middle of the night to deliver a warning. What more, he was able to escape without raising a single alarm. Such a show of skill weakened Salah ad-Din's resolve to continue a siege. Still it was nothing compared to his younger brother, now there was a rare skill, there was no weapon he couldn't master. His death six years ago was a great loss-" Miriam's expression suddenly shifted then as she thought of something. "If you are curious as to how skilled he was- well you have undoubtedly seen his best student fight. To have earned the robes of elite at twenty-two, I would even say that the student had surpassed the master."

"Miriam are you sure we should be talking about this?" Sandy asked. To her talking about Suleiman was thing, but his brother, it seemed odd, more-so is seemed inappropriate.

Miriam hummed, clearly dissatisfied, but said nothing to argue with her; instead she went back to her bathing, information torrent seemingly spent for the time being.

Sandy returned to her own as well, never the less the thoughts remained with her. She had actually learned something about Altair through Miriam's chatterbox tendencies, something that he probably would have never told her otherwise. It made her somewhat unhappy, but then she decided that it really didn't matter. It wasn't something that she had to know, even if she did want to know. She shook her head sharply to discard her wandering thoughts, there was no use dwelling on these things. Fortunately the two women with her didn't see the moment of distraction, and what more they found a topic that was so interesting to them both that they utterly forgot that she was there with them. Sandy was able to finish her bath without further incident, and she made her escape quickly.

Returning to Altair's quarters, she was momentarily surprised not to see him there, but as her eyes swept the room, she noticed that his arsenal was all laid out on the desk, each knife gleaming. His hidden blade was among them, the mechanism and the armguard were separate for once, and the former was draped in cloth. By the dark stains on the material she knew Altair had oiled it anew and left the cloth on to soak up the excess that oozed out. His arsenal was discarded for the night, which only meant one thing, he would be back soon from his own bath. She was tired enough to get right into bed without waiting for him or lighting the oil lamps. Hoping to prevent him waking her when he did return, she turned on her left side, facing the window, leaving half the surface open. If he could sneak into a room mostly undetected, she figured he could exercise his crazy ninja skills and practice slipping into bed without waking someone.

It didn't surprise her at all when she woke up to the sound of morning birds and the feeling of warmth against her back. There was an arm draped over her waist, pulling her towards its owner's broad chest. She tried to move without jarring him awake but as soon as she shifted even a little, the arm moved away and she was free.

"Good morning," she stated.

He didn't reply, and she knew better than to ask exactly how long he had been awake. Some part of her did not want to know how long he's been doing what he had been doing. She refused to even think about the fact that he had been holding her, and quite possibly watching her sleep for however long. She got out of bed as quickly as she could without making it look like she was running from the awkwardness she knew she shouldn't feel. Glancing outside the window, she noticed that the sun was just beginning to rise over the mountains surrounding the fortress. The town below was already busy; past the fort's walls she could see figures moving about in the village, women rising to draw the first water of the day. On the walls of the fortress some of the assassins were running early morning drills, and the wall guards were stretching their tired limbs after a long and probably boring shift.

Sandy dressed quickly and was out of the quarters and downstairs just as the first preparations had begun for serving breakfast. She had never been up quite this early, but yesterday had been a tiring day and she had ended up going to be earlier than normally. The decided to help the kitchen staff with setting the table this morning and in doing so catch this time's version of the morning news, gossip and rumor fresh from the mill.

"Good morning everyone!" she greeted, sweeping toward the mistress of the kitchen who was handing out stacks of plates.

"Well look who just breezed in all aglow and happy!" One of the women chorused.

"Tiring day yesterday, I had a good ten hours of sleep and they weren't on rocky ground, I'm ready to tackle the world!" Sandy replied, sweeping the room. None of her usual friends were there yet; Miriam probably wouldn't be working early for long anyways if she was right. However she didn't know what Rahel's excuse was. Fatima was probably fetching things from storage, or perhaps drawing water.

"Well since you seem to have no shortage of energy, you can help the others cut the bread for the tables," the mistress of the kitchen commanded.

"Yes ma'am!" Sandy turned on the balls of her feet and went for the four women in charge of the bread; the four were eyeing her like she had gone slightly insane overnight, but were nevertheless glad for the help.

"When you are done with that, I want you to help with the plating of the tables. We are a few hands short today," the matron continued.

Sandy glanced around the room and noted the other twenty or so women in the room. All of them were indeed busy with whatever task they were doing to make sure that breakfast for the men would be ready and enough. There was no usual chatter because they were so busy and by her estimation at least six of the maids weren't there. The mistress of the kitchen would not employ the youngest girls, they were the supply runners. She turned to her job with ardor, and after getting done with the bread and the plates, she even managed to squeeze in some time to help with the tea kettles. Measuring leaf and making sure they all steeped to about the same level was no easy task given the sheer number of kettles.

When she had finished the little chores and made her way to her seat at the head table she noticed the absence of Altair. Her regular seat was open, but the chair immediately to the master's right was occupied by Suleiman. She had never paid attention to the other elite assassins, but he normally sat on the far side of the table by the windows. She decided to figure these things out later and turned to the rookies. Faisal was at his seat and she moved toward him, putting her hands on his shoulders as she leaned down.

"Morning, kiddo."

"Good morning," he replied.

The boy next to him looked up, probably no older than twelve; she smiled at him but turned back to Faisal. "Talk to you later, pest." She said, straightening.

"I am beginning to hate your nicknames."

"Beat me and I'll stop," Sandy called over her shoulder as she walked towards her own seal. She heard the youth grumble something under his breath and chuckled, to be sure it was a challenge. She liked Faisal and didn't want him to end up hurt or worse, so she decided to make him a bit of a personal project. She might feel inclined to teach him some of the dirty tricks Wolf had taught her, but she knew better that coming up to him and saying that she wanted to teach him a thing or two, he'd probably either feel insulted or affronted. So she decided to smack some lessons into him instead. It would take a little bit longer, but he would learn to expect her dirty moves eventually, and that was just a stone's throw away from using them himself against some bucket-wearing knight some time down the road.

"Good morning Antonio," she greeted as she passed.

"Good morning _senorita_," he replied, rising to his feet to pull out her chair for her, allowing her to sit. Sandy spared him a rising eyebrow but nevertheless she sat down.

"Lady Informant," Suleiman spoke up.

"Good morning," Sandy turned and bowed her head to him in greeting. Knowing what and how much she knew, she couldn't help but pay the man the respect that he deserved.

"I was wondering if you might answer a few curiosities of mine, perhaps after breakfast, when we can talk without interruption, though I understand if you are quite busy," The man continued.

Sandy paused for a moment; the request was certainly a strange one, coming out of blue like it did. Her instincts were instantly on alert, but she disguised the consciousness with a smile. What would Suleiman want from her that he could not talk about in the open, possibly in the presence of Antonio or Altair? She wasn't the type to be bothered by this sort of proposal outright; she had nothing to hide that could not be concealed with a few ready lies. However the way he made the request discontented her, but she wrote it off as his seniority. She had to remind herself that this man was just as much an elite assassin as everyone at this table, more so he was senior elite, someone whom Miriam had warned her of. For the first time she was glad for Miriam, her warning was almost prophetic and timely. The man's expression was of kindness and had a disarming quality to it that she hadn't seen before. There was nothing about him that seemed to scream 'skilled assassin', and unlike Altair or Antonio he had no weapons. Then again, they could be hidden on his person and he could disguise that 'killing aura', she couldn't be sure. She decided that the best thing to do was to go along with the plan and remain on guard. "Certainly sir, shall we adjourn to the gardens?" she volunteered. It would be a more private, and yet still public location.

It was then that she heard the familiar clinking coming from behind her and turned her head, "Hey," she greeted. For once Altair's timing was absolutely impeccable, giving her a comfortable, if temporary escape from her own thoughts. He sat in his usual spot, forming a barrier between her and Suleiman, precluding any and all further conversation between them.

"Where were you?" he asked.

"Helping in the kitchens, did you need something?" Sandy asked.

"No," Altair replied calmly.

Sandy shook her head and let the silence reign as breakfast was served. It wasn't long before she noticed that Antonio was particularly attentive this morning, pouring her the tea, and being all gentlemanly and knightly charms. When he wasn't paying her attention, he was stiffened and responding even less to Altair than usual, even when the two managed to reach for the same bread slice from the basket. It was comical how they glared at each other over it, but then Antonio stepped down and took another.

Halfway through breakfast Sandy couldn't handle the silence any more. She turned to Altair and decided to ask him in kind, "I'm wondering what _you_ were up to, I managed to practically work a kitchen shift and still beat you to breakfast."

"I was placing an order in the workshop for something," Altair replied.

Sandy nodded her head; she wasn't going to ask exactly what he had ordered, because his arsenal was fully intact and on him. Mostly it was also none of her business. "So what do you plan to do today?" she asked.

Altair looked down on her and she noticed a faint frown on his features, "I haven't thought of it."

"It's not usual for you to have a day off, is it?" she asked, when she didn't get a reply she understood how redundant the question was. "Right, I'm talking to Mr. Workaholic." She patted his arm. "Well to be honest I don't know what to do with myself either, so we're even," she assured, pulling her hand from his grip.

"Whenever you say something like that, I usually get summoned for a mission," he stated.

"Maybe the master just wants to dump a workload on you, who knows, he either trusts you that much- or he is hoping you meet your premature demise." She let her expression finish the sentence; she thought that it could be both of those simultaneously. "I think I'm going to help Tony break Faisal out of his little idiosyncrasies. It'll do him good," She announced.

"You will be more than welcome, milady," Tony spoke up.

"Thank you Tony, I was hoping you wouldn't mind that one."

"I could never mind your attentions," he replied with a bright smile.

The rest of breakfast passed with a relative ease, but Sandy couldn't help but feel a pair of eyes on her at all times. It wasn't Altair on Antonio, their gazes she had long ago learned to tune out, and she had nothing to hide from them. She could only attribute the strange feeling to Suleiman, but she was bent on not showing any sort of effect. If he was observing her for whatever reason, she hoped he saw nothing that might say anything.

After breakfast she told Antonio that she would join him shortly. Altair was harder to lose, but when Suleiman walked off in a seemingly different direction, she merely feinted that she wanted to see the gardens and that she wouldn't be long. When Altair volunteered to come with her, she only had to hint to him of the impropriety of them being caught in the gardens together for him to recant. She patted his arm to reassure him, and then the two of them went their separate ways.

She walked all the way to the farthest edge of the gardens, slipping her hands into her sleeves, where the nervous grip on her elbows would be concealed by the luminous cloak.

"Lady Informant," a voice announced the arrival of the assassin.

Sandy turned around and bowed her head, unsure how to address the man before her, he had not introduced himself to her formally, so she was going to pretend that she did not know his name yet.

"There is no need for reserve, I mean you no harm," he spoke. Sandy nodded her head and straightened. The man approached, his limp was quite pronounced and Sandy decided that whatever injury had caused that limp still probably painted him. "I must confess I have been interested in getting to know our newest informant for a while now. It has been years since there had been a woman among those ranks," Suleiman confessed.

"Yes, I have heard that I am quite a novelty," Sandy replied.

"Allow me to introduce myself; I am Suleiman, a humble scholar now, a pleasure to be meeting you."

"Cassandra Lawrence, sir, the pleasure is all mine." She replied with a broad smile, and would have extended her hand to shake, but somehow she didn't think the gesture was used or appropriate in this century, so instead she bowed her head, figuring that would never go out of fashion.

"Given by your looks, you are from the northern regions of Christendom, no?" Suleiman asked.

"The north yes, but not of Christendom." She decided that better use her mixed ancestry and set herself apart from the crusaders. "I'm closer to being from the pagan folk, but I also have Greek blood."

"How is it that you came to being here?"

"It is a long an unhappy tale," Sandy replied automatically, she held her ground, showing only enough emotion to be appropriate. As far as legends went, she decided to stick to the same one she had insinuated before, of her being a captured slave that had miraculously gotten away. "I want to think that chapter of my life over. I never want to think of it again, I am far from home, far from my people, the raiders had seen to that," she added.

"I see, I will not pry further," Suleiman stated, his eyes focused on her as if he was judging her words. Sandy cast her gaze down and summoned all the acting skill she could muster to appear saddened, but not too upset. "How is it that you met Altair?" the man asked next.

Sandy looked up slowly, transitioning from one mood to another without too sudden a jump. She looked the man before her in the eye before speaking, a small smile appearing on her features. "I got into a spot of trouble with some guards in Jerusalem, first time Altair helped me out of some very hot water."

"I would have though that you would travel to Akka where you could find your closest kin," Suleiman noted.

"The crusaders are no kin to me. In fact the few times I have had the misfortune of encountering one or two, things have not gone well." She was going to omit the fact that she had encountered Templars in particular, and they seemed like the kind of people who would start erecting a stake for a burning at the first hint of anything heretical. She didn't want to think what would happen if she had any more unfortunate or longer encounters with them. Her one brief encounter with their haughty, high-and-mighty, undoubtedly blue-blooded Grand Master taught her a healthy fear of them. If she never saw a red cross on a white mantle again it would be too soon. Still, she knew that her luck never held, and odds were that said blue-blood was the mastermind behind the investigation Altair and her were conducting him, if so then seeing him again was a distinct possibility.

"I have heard of your encounters, I believe of the men you have killed, one was of the Templars."

"I was merely defending my own life; I seek no glory or recognition."

"You are a remarkable creature, Lady Informant. Perhaps that is why Altair esteems you as he does." There was a change in the man's tone, one that seemed to hint that he had gotten what he had come for.

"He respects me; I would not say he _esteems_ me." As soon as the words left her mouth, Sandy realized that her reply came out a little too fast and sharper than she would have intended. It sounded at best defensive and denying, and to some degree it was. She did not want rumors spreading about the best assassin of the fortress in any way being attached to her. For her own sake as much as his, whatever it is they had probably would cool once the tension found some sort of outlet. Even if it never cooled and the tension remained bordering on sexual, it was fine as long as no one saw it. "If I may be so bold- I have to wonder at the interest you are showing in me, I am far from interesting." Sandy asked, trying to keep her expression neutral, belying the curiosity of an innocent mind.

Suleiman remained silent, watching her with a pair of piercing gray eyes that almost looked predatory. "I disagree, Lady Informant," he spoke in a glacial tone.

It was then that she saw the wise assassin reveal who he truly was. A brief moment of intuitive insight told her that she had erred absolutely in thinking she could lie to him without tripping. The words she had uttered seemed to leave a burning sensation in her throat. She knew that she should not have asked, this man saw more than he was letting on. She broke eye contact, compelled to do so because the longer she held the man's gaze, the more convinced she became that he could read her very soul and see through all her lies.

"Those who insist they are uninteresting, Lady Informant, are the ones concealing the most interesting of _hidden_ depths." He finished, stepping back and turning away from her.

Sandy clasped her hands over her elbows in her sleeves. Chilled to the bone by the power of his gaze. When she heard a faint clinking, her head snapped up instinctively, she saw the man walk away. The limp made the sound different, irregular, but it was still there. He was carrying a weapon. Sandy remained frozen in the spot where she stood, watching him go, but without seeing. Her mind was laden with the possibility that Suleiman knew more of what had transpired, that he knew she was from the future. There was no way that was the truth, was there?

She remained in the garden, too wary of venturing back into the fortress before she could re-arrange her thoughts. That was where Altair found her some time later, sitting on a stone bench among the flowers, silent, looking but unseeing. He sat beside her, and it was only when his hand rested on her shoulder that she snapped back to her senses.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Sandy looked up, "yes- yes! I'm fine. Don't worry about me." She touched his hand on her shoulder and smiled. "I was just completely lost in my thoughts, more than usual."

"At least this time you were not on horseback."

Sandy couldn't help but smile, "too true."

They remained in the gardens until Sandy felt a little bit better; Altair's presence calmed her nerves and eased her worries. She had almost leaned on his shoulder when she heard footsteps rushing their way. Sandy's sprung to her feet and moved away, venturing to a bush as if to admire the leaves.

A novice appeared from the upper pathways. "Master Altair, the Grand Master is summoning you to his keep!" they boy called.

Sandy looked up from the bushes, and then glanced at Altair, catching his gaze.

"We better not keep him waiting," Altair stated.

Sandy nodded and followed him into the fortress. The thought of Suleiman all but chased away from her mind by thoughts of business and duty. Ascending the final flight of stairs to the master's keep, she decided she would worry about Suleiman and what he knew later; right now she was of more use to Altair. Her mind focused on the task of figuring out the missions he was being sent on.

"You wished to see us, Master?" Altair began.

The silence reigned; the Master was seated at his table again, looking over a collection of scrolls across it. The man looked up from his work and Sandy bowed, still unable to quite speak to the man without tripping over herself. Straightening she noticed a strange expression on the man's face.

"Yes, it has been a while since I have seen our newest informant," he replied.

"My apologies sir," Sandy murmured, she would've stood at attention too, but she somehow didn't feel like moving right now, it was hard enough not to be shrinking behind Altair.

The master said nothing to her and turned to Altair, "I have a job for you. The three targets I'm about to give you are slightly more sensitive than the three before, more dangerous as well. The sensitivity is such that I want them killed faster than the previous. You will take the names now and not come back until all three are dead."

"Understood," Altair replied.

Sandy clasped her fists in her oversized sleeves, an extended mission, what sort of men would these three be to warrant such an expedient measure? The only thing she could come up with is if they were more directly connected, and a faster strike was geared at preventing them from knowing that even one of them was dead. It would make sense, news didn't travel all that fast in this time, and if someone got killed, the chaos would slow down communications a little more.

"In Damascus dispose of Abu'l Nuqoud, the merchant king. In Akka your target is William of Montferrat, regent lord of the city. Finally in Jerusalem, Majd Addin, Salah ad-Din's regent."

Sandy tried not to drop her jaw, if she understood things properly, the three men were rulers! High class targets that would be very difficult to approach, some even more so than others. She tried desperately not to show her panic even as her mind fired into overdrive. Glancing at Altair she noticed the completely blank expression, he wasn't moved by the news at all, as if he was told to file some routine reports by lunchtime.

"I do not think that I need to tell you to be cautious as you move on these targets, undoubtedly our enemy is aware of your activities," The master added.

"It will be done, master," Altair stated with a calmness that belied nothing of his frame of mind. Sandy decided that once the two of them were alone she could share her thought with him.

The elder man watched them for a moment longer but then turned back to his work, "Dismissed," he added with bored disinterest. Sandy had little to do but follow Altair quietly down the steps from the master's keep.

"I think you were right, I am bad luck, and I think I just got you in hot water. I mean the merchant and the regent; reckon they won't be _as_ defended, but William of Montferrat? I'd make a snappy analogy if I could come up with one. It's plain insane!"

"You don't have to do it," he replied.

"But you do!" Sandy replied, trying to keep her voice from rising. Sound in these hallowed halls tended to echo. "As much confidence as I have in your demi-godly ability to kill anyone… I'm pretty sure there's a line somewhere."

"You have no say in this," he retorted brusquely.

"I know, I'm just an informant… I'm just venting, c'mon Altair, I can't help but worry for you, alright?"

He stopped at the entrance to the hall leading to their wing of quarters and turned to her. "I am not forbidding you to worry, but I am telling you it is useless."

Sandy nodded her head and tried to smile, but it came out weak and shallow, "I guess it's to be expected, we're going after men connected in some big time conspiracy… they couldn't all be rabble like the slaver and the arms dealer."

"William will be no harder than Garnier," Altair stated. "You place too much importance on reputation."

"I better not say what I would say right now, I'm bad luck. For all I know, I'll jinx it." She added, trailing behind him. She didn't want to even think the name, after all the saying went, speak of the devil, and he shall appear; she was pretty sure that thinking of the devil worked just as well. She really did not want to run into _him_ on the streets of Akka again. She didn't want to even think that invariably odds were that Altair would be sent after him as well. "Say well now we have three more names for my file. I wonder how in the holy hells they fit into this puzzle."

"They are the controllers of the cities, think about that one," Altair replied, opening the door to his quarters and stepping inside.

Sandy followed but she didn't need to think for long, too much television and movies taught her a simple truth, there was a dirty someone everywhere, whether they were dirty cops, dirty lawyers, dirty judges, or dirty politicians. They were a staple of the good crime story, and this was beginning to look like one to her. "They're dirty as dirty gets, hell it kind of makes sense. To conduct whatever shady business they want, they would have to buy those in charge." She paused in her rambling as she tried not to laugh at the thought in her head. Her mind flashed back to those early talkies where the detective was chasing a dirty gangster either through New York or Chicago. Somehow she just couldn't see Altair in a trench-coat, neither could she see their enemy passing for a typical Italian gangster, he was much too tall. She grinned at her own thoughts and moved to collect her things. "Where do we go first?" Sandy asked.

"Damascus, there have been news of Richard being in Akka, he is preparing to march south on Jaffa. When he is gone with his host my job will be considerably easier."

"He might take some pesky red-crossed rats with him too," Sandy mused.

"Those rats can scurry back at any moment," Altair replied.

Sandy slung her bag over her shoulder and reached for her cloak. She didn't want to think that they had just returned, and it seemed like there was no rest for the weary. When she thought about it seriously, a question arose in her mind, what was the rush? The mission could in theory wait for a day or two, couldn't it? Something didn't settle quite well to her instincts, the master was rushing, or at least it felt very much like that. Even with her suspicions, she knew better than to voice them to Altair. He was still an assassin; his loyalty was to the master and not to her, no matter how much she would have wanted it to be otherwise.

"Guess I better go find Tony and tell him that the plans changed." She murmured. "How long do you think we will be gone this time?"

"Just under two weeks if things go smoothly."

"When do they ever?" Sandy asked, turning around and exiting the room.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing Much

**Director's Notes:**

Well this took a little longer than projected, but I happened to get a little under the weather, it's that time of the year, allergy season. Add to that, balancing the chapters to set up what need to be set up, and not mangle a character or two in the process (too much) is a very difficult job. Hopefully you enjoyed the read, and don't want my blood for long wait times. The days pass way too fast for me, for some reason, I blink… week gone by, I swear it's a templar conspiracy! They know how to speed up time!


	29. Burning Heat, Damascus

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**Chapter XXIX:**__ Burning Heat, Damascus_

Sandy tried not to think about Antonio's expression when she had told him that she was leaving with Altair again. The hurt look had been a flash, an unguarded split second, but that was all she needed. She didn't apologize, because she had done nothing wrong, but she still felt pretty rotten. It was noon before they had departed, and the sun's heat seemed even more damning than usual. They rode in silence and with some urgency, having already lost half a day. Sandy wasn't about to question Altair's decisions to rush the trip, a little bit of rushing on the rides wouldn't harm her; it might make this extended mission pass quickly. It was evening before she emerged from her thoughts; the terrain had opened up to a small valley with rocky hills on either side, one of a number that dotted this part of upper Galilee.

They had spotted a retinue of Richard's men either patrolling or marching somewhere. The men, ten in all, were unusually far from Akka, nevertheless Altair had hidden the horses among the rocks and the two of them amused themselves in watching the group from the rocks. Sandy tried not to feel bothered by the fact that they couldn't light a fire with the pests around, the last thing they needed was to fight ten crusaders that decided to come investigate a plume of smoke.

Without the protection of a fire that night someone had to remain awake to watch for wild animals. Sandy got to sleep while Altair fulfilled that role. Sandy had offered to share duty with him but even before she had finished the offer he had grinned and said that he could go one night without sleep. She unrolled the sleeping mat close to him and curled up to sleep with her back turned to the assassin.

Seemingly an instant later Altair was shaking her awake. Sandy rolled unto her back and groaned, lying there with her eyes closed. The light in front of her eyelids was still very faint, dawn had probably just broken. Sandy found herself wishing that she had another hour of sleep.

"Are you going to get up?" Altair's voice floated over to her from some distance away. The sound of horseshoes ringing on rock told her that he was tending to Talimar. Sandy opened her eyes and her guess was accurate.

"I'd tell you no, but you'd probably make a point of leaving me behind," Sandy replied.

Altair turned away without replying, checking saddle straps on Talimar. Sandy would've thought he was ignoring her, had he not checked the straps twice in the last half a minute. Her gut was telling her that he did not want her to see the grin on his face right at that moment.

The journey to Damascus resumed after a brief breakfast, but progress was slow because of the increased presence of crusaders. Altair steered them among the rocks through a narrow pass unto a small, winding road that was further east from the one they normally took. The rocky terrain meant that the horses were picking their way along, Nyx more uncomfortably than Talimar; the stallion seemed to be more familiar with all-terrain travel. Finally around the later afternoon the terrain opened up as they turned northeast. They sped up a little, but the horses were already tired from the long day of rock hopping and it wasn't long before they broke for the night. The rest of the trip was remarkable uneventful, there were no crusaders this close to Damascus, and they arrived by the late afternoon on the third day of travel.

The camp outside the city's gates was bustling with activity, many of those there were merchants, most with their pack mules or donkeys, and one with three camels that watched everything with their keen eyes as they chewed something or other. Altair and Sandy led their horses the final distance, but when they got close to the gate they noticed that there were more guards at the gates.

"It seems like the recent events have not been entirely unnoticed," Sandy commented.

"They still do not know who they are looking for," Altair replied.

"If I didn't know that, I'd be actually worried."

There may have been more guards at the gates, but they weren't the smartest men on the planet. The two of them practically didn't have to sneak in as they walked behind the group of white-wearing desert traders. The men were discussing politics and the war as they walked and the business they had lost when Akka had been besieged. Sandy caught snippets of their conversation, it seemed like the people in charge of the port of the coastal city were not too keen on free trade; the tariffs had been increased twice since the city's capture. One of the men was saying that if Richard's march on Jaffa would succeed, they would lose the last viable port in Palestine, and then his business would be in jeopardy. He would have to actually run the route from Damascus and down to Egypt, perhaps as far as Alexandria in order to sell his spices to merchants bound for Spain. The man was cursing the very name of Richard and his 'band of overzealous bastards'.

Beyond the gates the city was busy as ever, but it wasn't hard to notice that there were more patrols and that the guards were more easily annoyed. Sandy thought that if Damascus was on alert, how bad would the hornet's nest be? In her nightmarish vision she saw crusader guards on every street corner of Akka, each like an angry hornet, spoiling for a fight. She hoped that her mind was just conjuring up the usual doom and gloom and not having a prophetic revelation. William of Montferrat still weighed on her mind, how was Altair supposed to kill him alone? If he was in any way wise, he would have a retinue of guards surrounding him. As they found a way to the rooftops, she shook her head and reminded herself that there was still time. For all they knew, once they were in Akka an opportunity to strike would present itself on a golden platter. She had to keep positive and hope for the best.

As usual Sandy was the second to jump down into the yard of the bureau, Altair was already in the bureau and she followed him inside, pulling off the hood of her cloak as she entered the house. She seemingly caught the Rafiq mid-sentence and for a long second he seemed to stare at her as if seeing things, then his expression changed into a big smile.

"Ah Lady Informant! I am glad you are indeed well!" he chorused.

Sandy smiled, "Thank you."

"The whole business with Jamal was very unsightly. I am glad he was thoroughly punished!" he continued.

Sandy shifted her weight from foot to foot and tried not to look too sheepish, "I can't say I am glad a man is dead because of me, but I suppose… given what happened- I guess it was inevitable."

"Ever humble, well-" he paused to wipe his hands on a wet rag. Sandy could see that Altair had caught him in the midst of shaping another piece of pottery. "There is little left to say on the matter. It had been quite some time. The two of you are probably tired from the road and hungry. My servant is preparing the dinner as we speak, truthfully I had expected you to arrive a little later- the guards in the city have been on alert in the last couple of days, but it seems like nothing can keep you two from coming and going as you wish."

He left the room through the corridor leading deeper into the house and Sandy glanced at Altair with a big smile. "As friendly a welcome as ever, I'd say."

"Dinner does sound good," Altair remarked.

Sandy exited the bureau and shed her cloak long enough to set aside her bag and jacket before she was back inside. "I was thinking, if the guards here are on high alert… Akka will be worse."

"Didn't you hear? Richard has ordered the march on Jaffa, most of his men will be going south, and only a skeleton guard will be left in Akka. I will use that to my advantage." Altair replied.

"I know, where there's a will, there's a way, right? But you know me, when I sink my teeth into a conundrum I don't let go until I solve it. I guess- I just want to help you."

"You are helping, in your own way," Altair replied.

Sandy shook her head and passed her hand through her hair, "Yes, but I guess I still feel as a straggler, a hanger-on, a groupie, a cheerleader…" Sandy stopped as her terms became more and more twenty-first century and hence alien to him. She knew that she had to just come out and say that she wanted a more active role in helping him, but how did one breach that sort of area with an assassin? It had occurred to her that she would never feel comfortable sitting in the bureau when he was doing his job, but she didn't want to be right there fighting with him. One assassin was hard to spot, having two would possibly compromise his odds, and she wasn't too stupid to see that she'd be more of a hindrance. Still, she wanted to do something. There had to be something that she could do without exposing herself to any unnecessary danger.

"Altair, in Jerusalem, what we did in that warehouse may not have yielded concrete evidence, but I am convinced that we need to start actively investigating. The targets you kill are all connected to the Templars somehow."

"What do you suggest?" Altair still sounder dubious of the whole prospect, sometimes his doubting attitude irritated Sandy to no end. Other times she wished more people doubted her, he forced her to plan and think her actions through even more thoroughly.

"I'm an informant, Altair. By my understanding, my job is to gather information. Where I come from, you do that in one of two ways. You either beat up someone for it, which does not work all that well for us, since we can't exactly beat up the people who know what we want to know." She looked him in the eye and smiled, "I know, I want to tie Robert de Sable to a chair and go Dirty Harry on his miserable hide myself."

"Dirty Harry?"

"Movie character back home, a classic… how shall I put it, your methods and his- _very_ similar." She laughed softly at her own joke, ignoring Altair's confused expression. "Anyways… In lieu of our inability to do that, there's the other way… my way. We investigate using the process from my home, and that's a little bit different, in fact some of the methods are probably ways you never thought of."

Altair stared at her for a very long moment, Sandy stared back, wondering what was cooking on his mind. Still, she knew what the expression his face meant. She turned away and paced for a long moment, scratching at the back of her head. "With our current target, there is a potential to hit the information mother lode, but also danger. I'm thinking a mix of espionage and forensics. I need an opportunity and a source of information. I would prefer getting into someone's documents rather than dealing with people. A witness can lie, and given enough reason they will lie even with a blade to their neck, but papers and letters never lie."

"It might prove impossible to get you near his documents," Altair replied.

"Well if an opportunity presents itself I plan to take it, but if it does not, it does not, I only wager when I know the odds are in my favor." Sandy placed her hand on his arm and smiled, "I'm not _that_ reckless."

They heard the footsteps of the fafiq coming back and moved apart. He stopped in the doorway and watched them for a second, "Well I expected to interrupt a conversation."

"We never have actual conversations," Sandy replied. "Mostly I do the talking. He just gives monosyllabic responses in a specific code."

"I stand corrected," the rafiq replied, amused.

Sandy glanced at Altair, catching his grin. She couldn't believe that she got away with such a joke at his expense. Was she beginning to get away with teasing him in a more open manner? Sandy decided that after the pillow gag in Akka, and this, the idea of her getting away with teasing him was worth investigating and experimenting with. She turned back to the rafiq, following him back inside the bureau. She watched as he sat in front of his pot again. After inspecting the pottery his expression changed to one of mild annoyance as he reached into a bucket at his side for the wet rag, wringing it out lightly before he wrapped the pot in it.

"This heat is unbearable." He commented cryptically. Somehow Sandy figured that the fact that his pottery was drying on the wheel was the reason why he was annoyed at that moment.

Sandy glanced at Altair again and gently jerked her head towards the door, silently telling him to follow her as she stepped out into the yard. As soon as they were out of sight from the Rafiq, Sandy felt Altair's arms on her shoulders, a split second later his large hands slid down her arms, then around her waist, and she found her back pressed to his chest. Surprisingly enough, Sandy didn't feel her face heating up; it was as if there was nothing in his embrace to be embarrassed about. It felt oddly right and she relaxed, leaning her head back into his left shoulder as her forehead touched his jaw. "If we are spotted like this-" she began.

"The danger is half the fun, no?" he finished. His voice was lower; a whisper that was meant only for her, but his tone was honeyed, almost sultry. That got Sandy uncomfortable and she straightened, pulling out of his arms. Sultry was not an adjective she used often -or indeed at all- to describe something, but the way he had spoken couldn't be described as anything else. That scared her a little, yes she was attracted to him, and if she was blunt with herself she would say that she was more than attracted. One could be attracted to a movie or music star one knew nothing about. Altair was different, he was her best friend, she knew him well enough that the word 'attracted' did not seem to work, it was too pale, too understated. So what else was there? What defined her feelings? She still didn't have a word for that.

Ultimately it didn't matter either, she liked his odd embraces, and she liked the chills his touch evoked. Not the creepy chills, but the euphoric kind, like those one got after riding the most intense rollercoaster in existence. Still, it was something that she couldn't afford, so she stepped out of Altair's arms and moved to her bag where she kept her bits of parchment. If she pretended to be at working, maybe she could calm her erratically beating heart before dinner.

Sandy tried to ignore his lingering stare as she sat down and pulled out the bundled parchments from her bag to go over, but as soon as she got into it in earnest, ignoring him became easier. She went over her documents, creating new scraps for the next three targets as she added whatever pieces of information she already had, which was way too little. She added the new names to her flow chart and stared at it without blinking; wondering what connected so many men on opposite sides of the conflict at hand. She had never bought into the conspiracy nuts who had said that the Knights Templar had historically been a shadowy bunch, conspiring, keeping things hidden, doing magic and voodoo in their spare time. It all worked for Dan Brown, but she liked facts, not fiction.

She knew they would be disbanded by papal order at the beginning of the 14th century on charges of heresy, trumped up or otherwise. She wanted to think that they had just done something, or simply weakened. No group, order, or arrangement of individuals was immortal. However, all the facts she knew did not align. Staring her in the face was proof that the conspiracy nuts were on to something, that some element of their theories might be rooted in fact. The Templars _were_ up to something, something big by the looks of things, something so big that they were willing to work with those who they should regard as enemies. What could it be? Sandy wanted to know, she had to know. Her instincts knew that once she had that piece of the puzzle, the motive for them working together, then everything would align. She had to align things, even if she had to chase down leads personally. However, right now, there was little she could do. There was no use becoming obsessive when patience was called for. Setting the documents aside she sighed deeply.

"Something wrong?" Altair asked.

Sandy looked over at him and grinned; Altair had shed his arsenal and was lounging with his back resting on some piled pillows, one leg stretched out, the other bent, a forearm resting on the knee. At that moment he looked like some sort of sultan relaxing in his harem. Just short a few dozen women, servant-slaves, and the dwarf entertainers. Then she realized that he had asked a question and she shook her head. "Nothing is wrong. I'm just obsessing over this conspiracy, its like- something tells me that I need to get to the bottom of this Templar affair, it's important that I do. Whenever I get a gut feeling this strong I learned to follow it. My intuition has never failed me before, I doubt it will now." She wasn't going to mention the strange dreams that she had in this time. Twice she had a strange, somewhat ominous dream that she didn't decipher in time. The last one before meeting Robert de Sable in Akka was worst of all. She was sure that the black eagle she had seen had been some sort of symbol, the bird and the man had the same sort of cold look in their eyes.

An hour passed between them with relative comfortable silence. Then dinner was announced and the mood rose with the thought of good food. As they sat down around the table, Sandy glanced across and tried to contain her smile, the table was set with some foods that she did not see in Masyaf. She speculated that such foods and spices were simply too expensive to be served in large quantities regularly. But in the Bureau, where there were never that many people eating at once, the keepers probably found it easier to fund more expensive foods. She helped herself to some rice, vegetables, and meat. As she poured her companions their first cups of tea, simply because she was courteous like that, the rafiq cleared his throat.

"So what brings you two to my door? Whose life will end soon?"

"Abu'l Nuquod. Can you tell me about him?

The look that flashed across the rafiq's face was one of surprise. Sandy took the first bite of her rice and just listened.

"He is known as the merchant king, the richest man in the city. Quite exciting, quite dangerous! I envy you, Altair. You lead a very exciting life; add to that you are lucky to have a lovely companion at your side." The rafiq paused to glance at Sandy, and then he turned to Altair again. "You should know what the others are saying about you."

"I do not care what the others think or say, if they choose to ignore the truth that is their shortcoming. I am here on a job. I ask again- what can you tell me about the merchant king?"

Altair's clipped, chilled tone seemed to snap the rafiq out of his jovial mood, his expression turned serious. Sandy took a bite of the meat as she watched and listened. She was sort of glad that Altair seemed keen on keeping the conversation from drifting in that direction, even if neither of them could do anything more than that. She knew that rumors about the nature of their relationship had been circulating even before Jamal threw fuel on them. Rightfully she couldn't go on a campaign to show them all that they were wrong. More-so because, A, it would be one giant waste of time and effort, and it would probably only make them more sure about it, and B, they were right, and lying to cover it up did not sit well with her, it never worked either.

"Only that he must be a very bad man if Al Mualim has sent you to see him. He keeps to his own kind, wrapped in the finery of the city's Noble District. He's a busy man- always up to something. I'm sure if you spent some time amongst his type, you'd learn all you need to know about him."

"Any particular location where we should sniff around?" Sandy wondered before sticking another mouthful of rice into her mouth.

"I'd start with the Omayyad Mosque and Sarouja Souk- both of which are west of here. Further to the northwest is Salah al-Din's Citadel. It's a popular meeting spot and has proved a reliable source of loose tongues in the past. Yes, these three places should serve your needs."

Sandy knew it would've ended up like this, this Abu'l man seemed to be pretty high up, an oligarch of the city, someone who would be well guarded and probably wary. "Another day, another job, another death." She muttered to herself around her cup of tea. It was as if her words had finished the conversation, the men began to eat as well. Sandy remained quiet throughout even as the dessert was served. As simple as it was, a bowl of succulent fruits, including some pomegranates, a fruit that she had never tried before. Sandy took one and proceeded to dissect it and pick out the juicy seeds from inside, ignoring everything around her.

The next morning the two of them were on the streets, Altair leading as they decided to explore the areas that the rafiq had suggested. As far as Sandy was concerned the citadel was their best bet, but being as it was the furthest location from the bureau Altair had decided to check the souk and the mosque first, she wasn't going to argue with him over something so trifling. She just hung back, and let him lead. As they turned another street corner, the mosque materialized before them. It was a large complex that dominated its surroundings. They walked at a quiet pace and as they drew near, Altair paused and looked at her.

"What?" Sandy asked.

He reached up, grabbing the edge of the hood and pulled it over her head with a jerk, dragging her chin down in the process. "Keep your face down, do not speak, and keep the cloak closed, it is best no one knows you are a woman." He explained. Sandy did not reply, following Altair into the courtyard.

As much as he had told her to keep her eyes down on the ground, Sandy raised her head just enough to see her surroundings. The building was huge and some element of her was curious as a tourist would be. Built of white stone, with a large courtyard surrounded by a colonnade, the Umayyad Mosque was a sight to behold. The two of them did not stop as they crossed the colonnade into the courtyard. Sandy tried not to look up and gawp like an awed tourist, but she was tempted, oh so sorely tempted. The mosque was beautiful and she wanted nothing more than to admire every detail, but she knew she had to focus on her job. She turned her attention to the people before her. The courtyard was full of men of various ages, but judging by their clothing she could tell that the vast majority of them were somewhat wealthy, evident from their brighter clothing. Greens, vivid rusted browns, and some blues. The wealthiest of them all had some decorations in the form of embroidery; one or two even had gold thread. The clothing was quite different from what the average citizens wore.

"The noon prayer call will come soon," Altair noted.

Sandy glanced at him and then she realized that he had already set up a legend for himself. They continued to walk the courtyard, as some of the other men were doing. She wasn't going to point that he couldn't pass for a faithful even if he tried, not with such an extensive arsenal. Instead of making snide comments and breaching Altair's rule about no talking, which made sense, she scanned her surroundings. Her eyes were the only things she could rely on at the moment, as the hood she wore made sound highly directional, making hearing anything very difficult. The sheer size of the courtyard complicated things even more. Suddenly she felt Altair's touch on her sleeve, his hand passed along the material as if it was incidental, but she had already learned that nothing with the assassin was ever incidental. She looked over and followed Altair's line of sight.

There, standing in the shadow of the colonnade in the corner of the yard were two men, both were finely dressed and utterly relaxed as they talked. The stones bounced sound enough to know that they were talking, but not enough to hear anything, and she couldn't read lips. Then the conversation between the two of them ended as one clapped the other on the shoulder and the two separated.

"Why them?" Sandy whispered, turning to Altair, wondering why he would single them out on the spot like this.

"You didn't hear them?" Altair replied.

"No."

Altair made a noise that sounded vaguely like a sigh. "They're the merchant's men," he explained. "Our man is planning a party in the next couple days."

"It's an opportunity," Sandy stated, the realization beginning to dawn on her.

"Precisely."

"All those people… still-" she stopped before she pointed out the obvious. If he crashed the doors of that gathering, his arsenal is bound to raise a few eyebrows. She also wasn't going to ask if they were done here. Altair had gone silent and resumed his walk, Sandy had no other choice but follow him and she figured that he was listening for anything else useful that might be scooped around. Sandy watched the other men around her, noticing that a couple of them had noticed their presence, one of the men had pointed them out to his companions, words were exchanged, followed by soundless chuckles.

"We're starting to draw the wrong sort of attention," she said.

"Come," Altair commanded.

Sandy was only too quick to follow him, eager to get out of there, regardless of how much her curiosity begged for more time to admire the architecture. The men who had laughed were openly watching them; she looked down and followed behind Altair. Maybe they just thought that she was a servant boy or something, she could live with that. She didn't want to even imagine what else they might think she was. Altair seemed to be a in a hurry and she had to practically jog behind him to catch up.

"Souk now?" she asked.

"You had to ask?" he replied.

"Just making sure," Sandy replied. "Well honestly now that we know there's a party happening, the market seems to be a good place to look for clues. Such events require supplies, the bigger the party, the more supplies. You're the shakedown expert, we find a victim, you do your magic, and we know the time and date."

"Magic?" he asked.

"Sorry, bad choice of word. I realize people are touchy these days about that one." Sandy slipped her hands into the opposite sleeves of her cloak as she walked. "Still, you have to admit, my theory is sound."

"It's also an obvious conclusion."

Sandy made a face and remained silent for the rest of the way to the souk. Her eyes remained on the people of the city, noting the guards patrolling and the average citizens. The souk they came to eventually was a big one, a covered narrow street that snaked and bended, branching twice. Sandy was quick to note that this was this century's version of the rich people's mall, the 'shops' flanking the street all offered various quite exquisite goods of all kinds, textiles, carpets, decorations, spices, and exotic foods. There were guards everywhere to stop shoplifters, and the people walking the street were better dressed than some of the people she had seen outside.

It was hard to miss the scene created by one merchant who boasted having fine silk straight from the Far East. He was arguing a price with a client who had a dark-skinned man-mountain guard that stood some feet apart from him, scowling at everyone he made eye contact with, yet should anyone come close to his master, his grip on the hilt of his curved sword tightened. Aside from the sword he also had a wicked dagger on the other hip, likewise curved, and a knife hidden in his right armguard. He formed a sort of bubble around the merchant and his client that people apparently did not want to step into. This told Sandy that the people around them knew the pair well enough, and that meant that they were someone.

Altair walked past the two, but as soon as the crowd had swallowed them up he stopped on the intersection of the market's streets. "Did you notice the agent with the guard?" He asked.

"Hard not to, they create a traffic jam," Sandy replied. "You're thinking they're persons of interest?"

"Not many people own slaves of his kind in Damascus."

Sandy nodded, no sure what to say on the topic of African slaves, instead she decided to regale Altair with the observation she made. "He's armed to the teeth, sword, dagger, knife in his armguard. Seen the look on his face? He may be a slave, but he has the same hauteur as his master."

"That was not his master. It was an agent for the merchant king; while you were ogling the slave I caught an element of his conversation with the merchant."

"I was not ogling the slave," Sandy protested. Thought it had been somewhat difficult not to, the man technically wore nothing that constituted as a shirt, just dark red pants, shoes, and a vest that looked a size or two too small, and he was clearly well defined from hours of long work. "Careful Altair, you sound _jealous_." The look the assassin flashed her was one of surprise, one that told Sandy that she had won that round. He probably had not meant to insinuate that she had been admiring the slave, but the way he had said it clearly did. Sandy grinned in triumph over him and decided to be merciful, "you're still my favorite."

"Any other man would punish you for such audacity," he replied with a slight glower.

Sandy wrapped both her arms his right and leaned in closer, "and I would make him pay dearly." She replied in all seriousness.

Altair watched her for a long second before the gears in his head shifted almost audibly. "We follow them," he stated.

"Right behind you-" Sandy let go of his arm and stepped away, "_master_." She added playfully as a final crack. She expected him to show some annoyance, but he surprised her with a grin and a look in his eyes that told her that the topic was far from dead. She followed him closely, glad for the fact that he was so tall and clad in white. Her mind shifted tracks, focusing on the task at hand instead of on the fact that they had just been flirting shamelessly in the middle of a public street. There was little that could be done about the sexual tension there, she loved to tease and harass him, and apparently there was some element of reciprocation on his part.

Following the two men wasn't difficult; the slave maintained the void around his master even as they moved. What changed was the hateful looks that some people sent at the man's back as soon as they passed, something that Sandy did not miss. So the merchant king's agent was hated, was the merchant himself hated likewise? If true, then there had to be a reason for the hate. In her mind it made sense, the man was working with the Knights Templar; he probably did something to anger his people even if the people didn't know where his allegiances lay. There was merit in pursuing this clue, so she caught up to Altair and tugged on hiss sleeve.

"The agent is hardly popular, some of the looks people sent at his back…"

"I noticed," Altair replied curtly.

"Reckon his master is hated just as well?" Sandy wondered. "Well given we know with whom he probably works, it makes sense that he wouldn't be mister popularity."

Ahead of them, the agent and the guard turned a corner. Altair and Sandy both sped up their walk to make the corner before they lost track of the men. The street they turned unto was wider, so the bubble around the guard was not as noticeable, never the less the citizens of the city seemed to skirt around the two men. Ahead of them a big house was visible, surrounded by a tall a garden and a tall fence.

"Let me guess, target's home?" she asked.

"Yes," Altair replied.

Sandy remained quiet, there was no need to point out that once the agent and the guard entered yard, which was the end of the chase. As if reading her mind Altair stopped and set his hand on her shoulder.

"Well that was a dead end," Sandy remarked.

"Not quite," Altair replied. "We turn to the merchants."

"You have money to bribe them?" Sandy asked.

Altair ignored her as he walked onward. Sandy frowned but followed along quietly. Before long they were in the market again. The merchant with whom they saw the agent last was bargaining with someone else now, showing the man an exquisite roll of red silk. The material was so beautiful that Sandy had to agree that she would half loved to own a robe made from it. Altair gave a pull on her sleeve, and Sandy almost jumped, realizing that she had been fixated on the silk. She followed him down the street and stuck her hands into the opposite sleeves again.

This time they took the intersection within the market and turned into a side street. Here it was a little darker, narrower, and quieter than on the main market street. There were fewer guards here, but the stalls were mostly food, which though attractive to shoplifters, probably wasn't as expensive.

"My world for a coin or two," Sandy muttered, eyeing all the various fruits, vegetables, and nuts that the merchants were selling. There were some fruits that she had never tried, and right now trying them was remotely appealing.

"Later," Altair stated moving onward.

Sandy pouted as she followed him, crossing her arms over her chest. Before she could begin forming any sort of protest to his sudden decisions to almost utterly ignore her, she noticed who he was stalking now. Three stalls ahead of them was another big man that looked like the guard from earlier, though not dark skinned, he was equally large and well built. Her eyes flashed to Altair and noticed that he was tense, like a cheetah stalking it's pray in one of the nature films.

"I'll buy you anything you pretend to be a woman shopping for dinner," Altair stated.

Sandy calculated her odds as she eyed the fruit stalls, then she wrapped her arms along Altair's and tugged him along, picking up a bubbly act that was different from the way she normally acted. She felt the assassin's arm stiffen in her grip. She tugged him close to the two men, but not too close for them to stop talking. She stopped in front of a fruit vendor and let go of the assassin's arm, leaning down to admire the fruits. Spread in front of her was an array of palm fruits; figs, bananas, and dates. There were also other fruits, more pomegranates, and one whole quarter of his stall was taken up by two large baskets full of raisins and sundried apricots. Her eyes drifted back to the bananas, they looked quite different from what she was used to on the shelf of the supermarket, but they looked no less appetizing. It had been a while since she had one of those, and right now she decided that it was a good midday snack.

As she picked a bunch of bananas to admire them and pretend to check for quality, the men some distance away returned to their conversation, having decided that the two shoppers were no threat. Sandy couldn't hear all the details, but enough to piece together a conversation.

"The last of it's been delivered." A merchant was telling the other man.

"Good. Make sure he also knows it wasn't easy arranging a shipment like this."

"It's only wine. Surely you didn't have too much trouble procuring it from those foreigners." The tall man argued.

Sandy blinked; the merchant king had ordered a large delivery of wine? Something told her that the fact that the two men were talking in a lowered tone meant that they did not wish to be overheard.

"May I help you?" the keeper of the fruit stall asked, shocking Sandy back to reality.

"Oh-" Sandy raised her head and smiled to the keeper, even as she kept her ear open to the conversation happening some feet away. "I was thinking what sort of dessert I could make for my husband tonight. I am thinking something sweet with some of these," she motioned to the bananas.

"Good choice! Yes, these are sweet and will make a good dessert. How many would you need?"

"We will take the whole bunch," Altair stepped in.

The merchant looked up at the assassin and stepped back a little, "of course, of course."

Altair produced a handful of coins and Sandy found herself carrying the bananas as they turned and left, spy mission complete. They left the market in silence, and that was as long as Sandy could take it.

"Wine?" she asked. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Islam forbade alcohol."

"It does," Altair replied.

Sandy whistled, "Someone's a little fickle in his faith, no?" she asked.

"Plenty are fickle in their faith, but this just proves that he's planning a party, nothing else," Altair stated, his voice taking on a note of frustration.

Sandy laid her hand on his arm, "I may have a solution, but-" she paused.

"What are you planning now?" Altair asked.

Sandy matched at him for a long moment, wondering if it was such an unusual technique. "Find the most expensive bathhouse and spend an hour there, listen to the other men without rousing attention," she stated bluntly. In the silence that followed Sandy expected some sort of reply from the assassin, but it did not come. "Ideally, I'd love to get close to the merchant king's wife, strike a conversation, I'd get the info you need straight from the source."

"I would let you- if the man was married."

"He's not?" Sandy asked.

"That much everyone knows. He keeps no harem either."

"Weird," Sandy murmured. "Then maybe I should do some snooping around the back door. He has to have servants. I just need one that is chatty."

"I do not want you anywhere near his servant quarters. You have already seen two of the man's guards, if you are caught-" Altair stopped dead.

Sandy hid her smile behind the edge of her hood. He was utterly right of course, if all of merchant's men were as large and well built as the two she had seen, getting caught would be dangerous. The merchant king may not need a woman by his side, but what about his men? She couldn't pass for another of the servants, her hair and eyes would give her away.

"Well then, Altair, perhaps this is a good time to use another resource we have at hand. Maybe the rafiq's men could help us find the date and time, and maybe the guest list too."

"The guest list?" Altair asked.

Sandy broke off one of the bananas from the bunch she carried and peeled it slowly. "The man's party is invitation only; knowing whom he associates with may come in handy in the future. For all we know, some of the names there might be future targets," she explained, biting a quarter of the fruit off and chewing slowly.

"You really do love your paperwork."

"There's a saying in my time; the pen is mightier than the sword. Its products have been known to seal fates and alter lives."

"Fine, we will play things your way- just this once."

Sandy smiled again, hiding the expression behind her cloak. "I shall not disappoint."

**The Tidbits Corner:**

Dirty Harry: Sandy is referring to a character played by Clint Eastwood in the 1971 film by the same name and its sequels. "Dirty" Harry Callahan is a blunt, cynical, unorthodox detective who is always in trouble with his bosses, is known for his high calibre gun and willingness to break rules to do his job. He is also saddled with jobs no one else wants to do.

**Director's Notes:**

This arc gave me hell preplanning it. I had an idea of what I wanted to happen, but it just would not unfold in my mind. I like to think that I have it figured out now. I am also kind of curious if anyone would be able to figure out the motif of the chapters titles behind this one, and the two that will follow.


	30. Ashes on the Wind

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXX:**__ Ashes on the Wind_

Sandy took her chance Altair had given her very seriously and wholeheartedly. "We still have the citadel to check, might as well cast our line there and see what bites. I did think right from the beginning that it was a good place to look." Looking around for anything like a garbage can, Sandy came to the realization that people in this age did not leave out dedicated containers for waste on every street corner, but leaving the peel just anywhere still seemed wrong. She folded the peel and decided to wait until she found a safer location to chuck it. Meanwhile she broke off another fruit from the bunch, "Banana?" she asked, offering Altair one.

"They're yours," he replied, before stepping ahead of her and resuming his previous job of leading. Sandy shrugged and peeled it too, eating slowly as they walked. She didn't even care that she received a few strange looks from the people around her. The poorer folk were eying the fruit in her arms like they wanted one, but Sandy decided not to be charitable. By the time they reached the citadel she had eaten three, and the fruit's remarkable ability to destroy her appetite had kicked in, she couldn't even think of eating the other three right then.

The citadel was another large complex, made almost entirely from a grayish, sand-blasted stone that stretched almost as far as the eye could see. The walls were dotted with towers on top of which there were undoubtedly archers. She could see some of them pacing the parapets, gazing on the people below. On the street at the foot of the citadel's wall were more guards. "What now?" she asked, looking at Altair as they drew closer to the big gate that looked like it might be the citadel's main. In front of it there was a square where the citizens of the city congregated. There were a more diverse gathering here, but those of wealth still steered clear of the poor as if the latter had some sort of contagious disease.

"Mingle and listen," Altair replied.

"I'll go left; you go right- unless you do not trust me."

"We are going to play things your way, so feel free to conduct an investigation on your own."

"Right then, I'll take a round and catch up to you after," Sandy explained before separating from him. Finding him again should not be all that difficult, again the matter of his conspicuously white clothing. She paused in the middle of the square and pondered where to begin her search, so she ran over the currently available information in her mind. They knew of the party, and the fact that very wealthy, apparently non-religious men would attend it. They also knew that the merchant king was disliked for some reason, the question of why remained. While it probably would not help them with the knowledge of the _when_ that Altair needed, that why could still give background on the target, in criminal profiling the background was important. Even if she wasn't a profiler, some things were just common sense and looking for the _why_ did not step her for looking for the _when_ as well.

Letting her hands hang at her sides, concealing her bananas in her sleeve she entered the crowd and began to watch and listen. In her mind she began to categorize the various people gathered around her. The poor probably wouldn't yield anything useful, so she focused on those who looked to be of higher classes. Deciding to take a bold chance, she lowered her hood, freeing her ears as she began to walk. The sun overhead was high now, and the light blinded her eyes, but she needed her ears more right now. She ignored the trailing looks as her hair undoubtedly stood out, but at that moment she needed her ears more.

Then she heard it, snippets of conversation between two men filtering through the noise. "… can you believe it? He's … another…" Sandy stopped and turned her head. Some ten feet away were two men, both finely dressed. She turned away and continued to walk, but added a gradual circling turn to her walk, keeping them in her ear shot even as she swept the crowd for Altair. She spotted him about fifty feet away, too far to draw his attention without shouting unless he happened to look right into her eyes, but at that moment the crowd closed about him and she lost visual, Sandy cursed, turning back to her targets.

"… I want you to deliver this letter. Trust me; it will prove everything once and for all, trust no one, and give it to him directly."

Sandy stopped again, she was sure that the men were talking about the merchant king. She turned her head and watched as one handed the other a small but thick letter-sized package sealed with red wax. She swept her surroundings for guards, there were a couple of them, but the crowd was pretty thick, they would not see her. She turned to the second man who was holding the letter; he had turned and began to walk. Sandy knew there was no time to alert Altair, she had to go for it. She turned and began stalking her prey.

Altair watched Cassandra's progress from a distance, he had told her that she could investigate on her own, there was no harm in it, but he didn't tell her that he would not keep an eye out on her. The distance between them was such that if she encountered any trouble he would be there in seconds. When he saw her pause once he thought she might have heard something. Then she looked his way but the crowd had thickened and he lost her. He sped up and, trying to move through the crowd as fast as possible, but without rousing suspicions. When the crowd thinned a little he was surprised to see that she was gone. He stopped to sweep the crowd, but there was no sign of blond hair or white cloak anywhere. Admittedly, he was impressed; she had learned to hide in plain sight so well that even he couldn't spot her.

"Stop! Pickpocket! Thief!" a man's sudden shout rang out over the crowd.

A wave of surprised voices washed over the stunned crowd. Altair swept the crowd again, still no sight of her, but the last thing they needed now was a thief. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the crowd shift on the edge of the square and just like that Cassandra burst out into the open, flying like the devil was at her heels, her cloak hem and sleeves streaming on the wind. Altair cursed and entered pursuit, what had that reckless woman done, and to whom? The crowd seemed keen to move the other direction, hemming him, slowing him down. He had to push through it, ignoring the complaints and insults, eyes focused on his fleeting charge. It was then he saw three guards emerge from the crowd, giving chase to her as well. He cursed again, whatever she had done, it better prove to be worth it. She was running south for the side alleys, smart, but the guards were too close for her to lose them quite like that. At least she had half a mind to run away from the citadel's wall.

"Catch her!" one of the guards shouted to the others on the edge of the square.

Three more materialized from the edge of the square, all had their swords drawn. Cassandra skidded to a sudden stop, throwing a look around her for another avenue of escape, but at that point she was surrounded. Altair finally managed to push through the crowd into the open, but he was still too far away when the first guard lunged at her. Altair reached for a throwing knife, deciding to hell with it, he was not losing Cassandra like this. The first guard had swung his sword just as Altair drew the knife. He saw Cassandra move at the last possible moment, the sword's tip just touching the flying hem of her cloak's sleeve, sliding along the billowing material, but she did not stop as she feinted around him, and she was running again, using the gap he had created as an opening to get past the other two. Ignoring the rest of the guards Altair gave chase, sheathing his throwing knife. The minx had just bluffed her way out of a fight by a hair's breadth, he would have been almost impressed if she was not acting only a little better than a reckless rookie. He had to give her credit for not standing her ground and drawing her weapons here. Even he would not have chosen to fight in the open like this.

"There's another! He's with her!" one of the guards shouted as he ran past them.

He saw her turn sharply to the left, vanishing into an alley with a clap of her cloak. The distance between them did not shrink; she was running as fast as she could. Altair followed, running through the alley until he found himself in a t-junction. The alley connected with a side street, but as he looked either way he couldn't see her. Then he could hear the guards, they were slowed down by their armor, but they were still in pursuit. Where had she gone? Then he saw the peels of the bananas she had eaten, laying haphazardly on a crate. There was a ladder set against the wall next to the crates; Altair looked up just in time to see the clap of white material as she ducked out of sight on the rooftop.

"There he is!" a voice shouted behind him.

"Where is your wench?" another jeered.

"Beyond your reach," Altair replied, turning around. There were four guards crowded into the narrow alley, led by the man Cassandra had sidestepped. He knew that he had to get rid of them before he could follow her to the rooftops.

"But you are not." The guard replied, his voice taking on a dark tone.

Altair approached the man and grabbed him by front of his clothing. "And you are in mine," he uttered, punctuating the words by introducing his hidden blade deep into the man's gut.

"He's an assassin!" one of the others recoiled.

Altair was already reaching for his throwing knives, two more guards were dead with two flicks of his wrist and the fourth met his fate at edge of his hidden blade. Altair could hear more coming as he retrieved his throwing knives and sheathed them before he turned to the ladder. Right at that moment he had a more pressing issues to deal with, such as Cassandra's idea of 'investigation'. He wasn't sure what he was going to do to her when he finally caught her. Part of him was angry at her recklessness, part of him was angry at himself for letting her be reckless, and another part of him -a small part- wanted to do something else altogether. He almost scrambled up the ladder and out of sight.

Sandy had run herself out fleeing from those guards; she knew she had screwed up _big_ time, but that did not mean she was giving up, or that she was out of tricks. She got herself into a mess, she had to get herself out, and she had to rely on her own brain. She did not hover on the same rooftop for long, making her way towards the next. Here she found a five foot gap between that she jumped with a running start, landing in a crouch. This roof had a structure on top of that looked like a gazebo frame with cloth curtains. She figured she was best to hide in there. Inside she found a discarded dusty carpet on top of which she stretched out to catch her breath.

"I think I'm ready to die now. Altair will chain me to a roof beam in the bureau- that is, assuming he does not kill me instead." She muttered to herself. She couldn't help but cringe a little at the thought of what Altair would do to her, and she had no right to blame him either. He gave her one chance to prove herself, and what does she do? Screw it over so bad that it wasn't funny. At least she was alive, and unharmed, that was all that mattered, right? Sandy sighed, whom was she kidding? Altair was going to finish the job that those guards started. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! God I am so _stupid_!" she chanted.

"You'll get no argument from me," a voice replied.

"Altair!" Sandy exclaimed as she shot up into a sitting position. Her heart slammed into her throat and then leapt into the stratosphere, there he was, his arms raised, hands grasping the top edge of the gazebo's frame structure as he leaned inside thought the slit curtain.

"Were you expecting a guard?" he asked calmly.

Before Sandy could stop herself, she was almost shouting the apologies. "I screwed up! I am sorry! I am so sorry!" Then she realized that his expression had not shifted one bit and stopped. Was he that angry that he was stonewalling her? Somehow that seemed worse than a shouting match. She could handle shouting matches, but she did not know what to do with his stonewall rage. Then he suddenly extended a hand and Sandy stared at it for a long moment before shakily putting her own in his. He gave her arm a sudden yank and just like that she was pulled to her feet and into his embrace. His left arm wound around her waist while his right hand snaked into her hair and pressed her head to his chest, his chin just touching her temple. Whatever she had expected, this was the absolute last. The stress of what had happened combined with the fear of what his anger would yield left her completely unprepared for this reaction. As the shock washed down she realized that he wasn't as angry as she feared, and then the waterworks started and she began to sob quietly. "I'm so sorry Altair." She whimpered.

"I heard your apology, that's enough," he stated sternly, even as his right hand continued to stroke her hair.

"You're really not mad?" she asked.

He leaned down, his lips now next to her ear as he spoke. "I am, but I realized that whatever you tried and failed to do, you were trying to help me."

"Whoa, slow down. Who said I _failed_?" Sandy pulled out of his embrace and drew aside the hem of her cloak, revealing the sheaf of parchment tucked into the belt of her pants.

"You-" Altair's eyes widened in surprise.

"I managed to lift the bloody thing just fine, but then the crowd shifted again. A man bumped into him and he bumped into me, and when he turned, he saw me slip the parchment into my cloak. He shouted. I booked it. Altair-"

He put his fingers to her lips and cocked his head to the side. Sandy stared at him for a long moment.

"More guards, we haven't got time, come." He took her hand and pulled her over the edge of the gazebo thing, turning in the general direction of the bureau as they jogged across the rooftops. They found a plank bridge spanning another alley and once they were a few houses over, only then Sandy dared to open her mouth and speak again. "I know where I made a mistake too. I should have let my sleeve cover the parchment."

"You will not pick any more pockets. It is the most dangerous thing you can do," Altair reprimanded.

"I would never do that again even without you telling me off. I think I understand why you prefer the shank-and-snatch approach, but that is not something I'm willing to do either."

Altair remained quiet for a long moment as Sandy walked behind him. They had spotted another ladder leading to the street level and Altair paused by it, barring her way. "While I am unhappy that you risked your life so carelessly-" his voice took on a lecturing tone, like a father and teacher rolled into one. "I am also partly impressed."

"You'll be more impressed once you know whom I pilfered it from," Sandy grinned, happiness swelling inside her. He was impressed! Sure he was also somewhat angry, but he was even a little impressed, she considered that a win! She patted the letter at her side so that the parchment crunched. "Apparently the merchant king had ruffled enough feathers in this city. I heard the man say so himself that whatever is inside this letter is proof of Abu'l misconduct."

"It could still be useless."

Sandy grinned from ear to ear, "Maybe, but I have this gut feeling- It will be worth the risk I took, trust me."

"We are going back to the bureau, your actions roused the guards and it is best we lay low for now."

Sandy looked up at him as she stepped unto the first rung of the ladder to descend to the street. "You read my mind," with that said she climbed down.

They got the bureau without any incidents; it seemed like the news of one pickpocket had not spread as far and as fast as they had assumed they would. Sandy wasn't going to question that bit of good luck; she was too tired from her frenzied run and the emotional rollercoaster. Jumping down in the bureau she landed a little shakily and her right knee slammed into the floor when her leg folded under the force of the impact. She had to bit her tongue not to utter an expletive or two as the pain seared for a long moment, but it took her a twice as long to get back to her feet so she could enter the bureau.

"You are back, and sooner than I had expected," the rafiq stated.

"Well, it was a somewhat productive investigation," Sandy began, trying not to give away the fact that she was on pins and needles and that her right knee was still panging.

"The merchant king is planning a party, the event will give me the cover I need to get close," Altair stated.

"When?" the rafiq asked.

"That's actually the problem, the time and date are hush-hush, I assume invitation only," Sandy continued. "We were hoping that maybe-"

"One of your men could find the time and date." Altair finished, giving Sandy a glare that caused her to falter.

"I personally would've loved to get a look at the guest list too, it may not mean much, but who knows… information is information. We won't know what it is worth until we have it," Sandy added.

"You are correct," the rafiq was smiling brightly as he looked at her, but then he turned back to Altair, "I will see what I can do regarding your requests, but what interests me why he is targeted _now_."

"He's hardly popular among the people; we've seen one of his agents at the souk you referred us to. The looks the man was getting as soon as he walked past-" Sandy shook her head. "If the agent is hated, the man himself can hardly be loved."

"Cassandra also uncovered information that we have not even looked at yet," Altair added.

Sandy looked up at him and glared as she reached under her cloak and pulled out the folded parchment. "This," she waved the sheaf.

"Impressive, most impressive." The rafiq was smiling. "Lady Informant, you seem to possess quick fingers to match your quick mind."

Sandy laughed nervously, unsure whether she should be confessing that she had quicker legs. She had been technically caught lifting that document and had only gotten away by a sheer miracle. "Could've been a little bit faster," she replied cryptically.

"Well what is it?" the rafiq asked, eyeing the sheaf in her hands.

"Doh!" Sandy exclaimed turned it over to check the seal, only to find that there wasn't one. The wax had not been stamped at all before it set. She tugged on the seat and it broke in half, allowing her to unfold the bundle. There were three pieces of paper inside, not counting the wrapper that bore the seal. The wrapper itself had no writing, but a strange very light discoloration on the inside side of the inner flap, as if it had been wet at some point. Sandy ignored it and decided that was probably why it was used as a wrapper. "Wrapper, someone's wealthy to be wasting this much paper. Letter consisting two pages… painfully tiny script. This third one looks like a table of some kind of data, clearly encrypted."

"You can make yourself at home here, please have a seat." the rafiq motioned to his working counter.

"Thank you," Sandy replied as she moved over and spread out the package contents, but remained standing, hunched over the pages. "I can't read this; it's too tiny and rather messy. It's like the author meant the size and messiness to be some sort of encryption."

"Perhaps he did," Altair stated, snatching the first sheet of the table as he stepped outside to read it by the sunlight.

"Hey!" Sandy followed, then stopped, and flashed the rafiq an apologetic smile.

The older man shook his head and smiled back, motioning her to keep going as he turned back to his pottery. Sandy grabbed the two other sheets off the counter and followed Altair, pouting because he was technically stealing her thunder. She needed some thunder right then to feel a little bit about almost messing up.

"You were right, this is a big find," Altair stated as soon as she was standing beside him. "That table is a copy from a bookkeeper's ledger."

"Well what does it say?" Sandy asked.

"Listen this-" he paused before beginning to read out loud. "_I have done my best to balance to ledgers, but the counts show something strange: payments to Jerusalem's Regent and William of Montferrat in Acre. I had thought this might be connected to the ransom demanded by the Crusaders for our captive brethren, but given the way that ended (peace be upon those poor souls), this seems unlikely._" Altair looked up.

Sandy blinked dumbly, she was sure that Altair had just read her the juiciest choice from the whole text of the long letter. "Well that proves that our current targets are connected."

"There is more," Altair stated, "_You should also know that there have been extravagant parties as of late. All held within The Merchant King's Palace. This is absurd! The citizens of Damascus starve themselves to help Salah ad-Din's war efforts, but instead, their money is being spent on feasts! They deeply despise the Merchant King, and are powerless to stop him._" He looked up and handed back the sheet.

Sandy realized that it was probably the limit of what he was willing to read for her. "Well now we know why the man is hated too. I have a feeling the people will be glad when he's gone, I mean… I do not condone war, but I imagine knowing your money is not going where you want it to go-" she stopped, realizing that she was losing her point again. "Never mind."

"We also know the place," Altair stated.

"I need to see if I can read the rest of it myself. Maybe the key to the table is hidden in the text of the letter, but in all likelihood the recipient already has a key," she walked over to the carpets and eased herself down on them. "Let's see if my cell phone's camera can help me with the magnification."

"The what?" Altair asked as he sat down next to her, curious.

Sandy turned on her cell phone and waited for it boot up, never before was she glad that the thing seemed to be drawing energy some from some source than at that moment. She hit the camera button and held it up to the letter before she increased the zoom. It worked well enough to make the letter legible, though the camera's lens only caught three or four words at a time. "It's a camera, it takes images of anything you point it at, but it also has a feature to magnify objects that are further away. In this case, look, it makes reading the letter a little easier." She glanced at Altair and caught his look of surprise.

"The image changes when you move it," he stated.

"That's because I didn't hit the shutter," Sandy explained, moving her thumb. The cell phone emitted a loud noise that sounded almost like a gunshot as the shutter went off, but as she moved the letter away and the image remained the same, it illustrated her point well enough. She cancelled it out, and the image began to move again. "We use it to take pictures of each other in various settings, just to freeze the moment for posterity," she explained. "But it has a thousand other practical uses." With the explanation out of the way she turned back to reading the letter. It took a while, but she realized that between the cordial greetings and the friendly exchanges, the letter was full of little tidbits of information. The two selections that Altair had read were by far the best. Halfway thought her reading she noted that Altair had gotten up and stepped back inside the bureau, probably off to tell the rafiq what they had discovered.

After she had finished reading, Sandy quickly turned off and stowed away her cell phone. As she had thought, there was nothing in the letter that jumped at her like some sort of cipher key. No misplaced capitals, no strings of numbers, no big empty places where a message might be hidden by clandestine writing. It seemed like the recipient had the key to the prearranged code already. So got to her feet and turned the papers over and stared at them. Prearranged keys were dangerous matter; it meant that they couldn't be changed readily. Each use of the same cipher was a risk of discovery. If the data was indeed a ledger, the accountant was risking enough already just making this sort of copy. Espionage was never popular, and who knew what sort of punishments it carried in this century, regardless it would include ample torture. Would the man risk his life using one cipher? She wouldn't have. It was then that she suddenly remembered the stain on the wrapper, suddenly it was worth checking. Was it a stain, or was it more? Suddenly she had to be sure; she got to her feet and marched into the bureau and towards the counter, picking up the wrapped.

"Cassandra?" Altair asked.

Sandy turned around and noticed that she had just brushed by an informant without even noticing him. "Oh sorry, I was thinking of the wrapped, this stain on it… I thought it was just a drop of some drink, but now I'm questioning it. It is very light and looks like it was dried quite carefully, but the shape is inconsistent with some sort of sloppy splatter or spill from an overturned cup."

The informant approached and took hold of the wrapper, "I am uncertain what it has to do with anything, but that does look like a spilled drink," he stated.

"Maybe it is just a spilled drink," Sandy replied, pulling the parchment out of his hands, "but I want to be sure." Sandy glanced at the rafiq and noticed his knowing smile. Suddenly she was surer that she was thinking along the right track, the rafiq seemed to have understood her without her having to spell it out. She raised the paper to her nose and took a few whiffs. The inside of the parchment smelled predominantly of mold with a hint of wax and smoke. Then she moved closer to the stain and her nose met a very different but familiar faint scent that muted the tinge of mold. Suddenly she had to suppress the urge to laugh like a mad hyena. It was one of the oldest clandestine ciphers in the world. "_Lemon_ juice," She declared, grabbing a candle off the counter. "And that means only one thing." She held the parchment over the candle and as if by magic, tiny writing on it began to appear and darken. "The cipher key, gentlemen. Quite brilliant too, it does look like a spill if you don't know the shape is all wrong, and the seal fits right over it, shielding it from the sun." she set the candle aside before she turned around and marched right back to her pillows in the yard, leaving the assassin, and informant utterly baffled.

Some part of her mind told her that she should not have ignored people like that, but right then most of her mind was occupied with the cipher key. There were columns of symbols, letters, and numbers arranged in pairs. She laid the wrapped on the carpet and picked up the data sheet. Staring at the wrapper and table she began to see the same symbols and numbers. "Well I guess this one is as simple as it looks," she muttered to herself.

"What is it?" a voice asked.

Sandy's head whipped up so fast, she almost felt her neck creak. The informant she had ignored was standing over her, curious. Now that she got a good look at him she discovered that he was no older than seventeen, possibly just turning eighteen. He wore the same cloak as she did, though it fit his frame better than hers ever had. Underneath he wore the short-tailed tunics of an initiate.

"Information that I am trying to decipher."

"Do not bother her when she is at work," Altair appeared.

"My apologies Master Altair, I was merely... I wanted to meet the Lady Informant."

"I am Cassandra," Sandy got back to her feet. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

The youth bowed, but under the cold glare of Altair he did not dare speak another word.

"Get to work," Altair commanded.

"Right," the boy turned and left the yard as fast as his feet could carry him.

Sandy spared Altair a chilled look and eased herself back on the carpet, picking up her papers again. Then she remembered that she needed to borrow a quill and some ink and had to get up again. "I'm really beginning to think you're the jealous type, Altair." She commented, stepping past him. "As soon as someone even talks to me, you go on the defensive." She stepped into the bureau, "Excuse me, may I borrow some ink and a quill?" she asked.

"Of course you may, help yourself to anything you need off the counter," the rafiq replied.

"Thank you," Sandy picked up the inkwell and the simple white quill. Sandy chose to ignore Altair as she went back to work on decoding the table. It took her about an hour to transpose all the symbols on the sheet because she checked and double checked. As soon as she set down the quill and closed the inkpot, pushing it aside so she couldn't accidently tip it over, she got up and crossed the yard, sitting down next to Altair.

"Here. Take a look, its concrete alright. Exactly what the men in the letter were talking about."

Altair took the page from her hands and stared at it, probably between her scribbles and the original writing, the page looked very messy, so Sandy decided to show him the highlights. "Here. And Here." She indicated two items on the list. "Pretty large sums of money sent to Akka, and then here to Jerusalem."

"You shouldn't have bothered decoding, we already knew what we needed from the letter," Altair replied.

"When I figured out where the cipher was, I wanted to decode the table. I was thinking that maybe we would find other connections here, but no. Just these two." She paused, looking up, only to meet his unblinking stare, Sandy didn't flinch, but the intensity of the stare did make her nervous, "what? I love a good puzzle."

"That mind of yours is insatiable," he stated, but his voice was lower and huskier. Just a moment Sandy could have sworn that his gaze flicked to her lips.

"You say it like that's a bad thing."

"You should show the Rafiq what you found," the assassin stated, handing her back the paper. Sandy pouted, but did as she was told. She figured that she could make him pay for that comment later. Along the way she picked up the inkwell and the quill, retuning them to where they belonged.

Sandy spent the rest of the time until dinner with the Rafiq, after showing him the table and getting remarkably high praise for her work she remained there to help with the pottery. Admittedly her job was little more than handing him the tools he needed. When the servants stepped into the room to announce dinner, she was quick to wash her hands off and exited to the yard to tell Altair. She found him reclining on the carpet, his arms crossed under his head, but due to the hood she couldn't tell if he was asleep or not. She would've thought that he would be, lying for hours on end with nothing to do, she would've been dozing off in forty minutes flat.

She approached, intentionally shuffling her feet. "I don't have a dinner bell to ring, but dinner is served," she announced, knowing how light a sleeper he was. Without waiting for a reply she exited the yard and moved towards the kitchen where the food was.

At the dinner table she noticed that Altair was watching her. With the hood down, it was hard to miss his lingering stare; it only wavered when the rafiq was in danger of noticing it too. It made the whole dinner a tense affair for her, and about halfway through she had enough, but decided not to make a scene in the kitchen. When dinner ended, she helped the rafiq gather the dishes into the sink. Just then there was a knock on the door and then it opened and the informant from earlier stepped inside.

"Good evening," he greeted.

Sandy smiled at the informant, "Good evening. How did the search go?"

"Difficult, but-" he shifted his weight under the weight of her smile. "I was able to find out what was needed."

"Excellent," the rafiq stated.

The informant reached into his cloak and produced a folded piece of parchment. "Here is the guest list I have compiled."

Sandy accepted the parchment and unfolded it, "When is the party?" she asked calmly.

"Tomorrow night."

Sandy looked up sharply; this was the second time this particular informant surprised her in such a manner. "Cutting it awfully close. Well- I better go tell Altair." She walked past the informant toward the gardens, grasping the parchment between her index and middle fingers. "Thank you, by the way."

"You are welcome." The informant called back.

Sandy almost jogged to the yard and spotted Altair who was relaxing on the carpet. She crouched next to him, "The guest list."

"When's the party?"

"Tomorrow night." Sandy repeated, feeling vaguely like a parrot.

"We're in luck then," Altair said as he snatched the guest list from her fingers.

Sandy got to her feet and discarded her cloak as she watched him from the corner of her eye. She wondered what his stare had meant during the dinner, but right now she was glad for the return of the informant. It meant that she didn't have to confront Altair for a while longer. Maybe past that she could busy herself with trying to figure out what the youth did to get his hands on the time and the guest list. Then she also had a feeling that she didn't want to know that much.

"I recognize only three names on this list."

"Oh? Anything they have in common?" Sandy asked.

"Other than supporting Salah ad-Din…" he paused. Sandy frowned; it was so unusual for Altair to trail off on a thought. Then he turned to look at her and held out the list. "Go show the list to the rafiq, ask him how many of Salah ad-Din's supporters are on this list."

Sandy took the list from his hand and turned right back around. She made her way to the kitchen where the rafiq was instructing his servant with the cleanup. She leaned on the frame of the door and waited to be acknowledged. The informant was at the table now; she noticed that he was eating what was left of the large dinner. Then as if sensing his gaze he looked up and his spoon paused.

"Ah Lady Informant, what brings you back?"

"Altair asked for a second opinion on this list."

The rafiq approached and took the list, scanning over it quickly. The servant bowed out of the room, almost as if she knew that this conversation wasn't for her ears. Sandy wondered how much the woman knew about whom she was working for.

"No one in particular seems to stand out," the rafiq stated.

"He recognized some supporters of Salah ad-Din, but he thinks there are more than the three he knows.

"Oh there are more." The rafiq stated. "Most on this list are."

Sandy frowned and took back the list, "If I think what Altair thinks, this doesn't bode well. Thank you." She turned and left the kitchens, hurrying along back to the yard, almost sprinting the final distance. "You were right, there were more." She announced, waving the list. "Most are."

Altair sat up and placed his forearm on a raised knee, the armor of his gauntlet gleaming. "I assume you know what I'm thinking."

"That party will not end well. You and I both know who Abu'l is in league with. There is only one reason why anyone would invite their enemies to a party. He plans to kill someone."

"Or everyone," Altair replied.

Sandy shook her head in disbelief, "That's going to be one killer party, in every meaning of the phrase." Then she began to pace the length of the yard. "I don't like this, Altair. I really do not. I mean I hate war as much as anyone, but killing those men will do nothing to change its flow. It will just be more senseless, meaningless deaths."

"War is full of meaningless death," Altair stated.

"All the more reason to try and prevent these!"

"You do not even know how he plans to kill them."

Sandy stopped cold in her pacing and put her hands on her hips. "I could make a few educated guesses." Flashing him a look as she resumed pacing slowly, folding her arms as she began to run down the facts. "Given what we know- the people hate him for throwing parties. He's flaunting his wealth, and I can tell you that he probably wouldn't want blood on his expensive floors, so blades are not his main means." She stated. "Furthermore, he'd want to make sure everyone who showed up actually died. He'd probably use a poison."

"You can't order the people not to eat the food," Altair stated.

Sandy stopped, "No, it's not the food, too much stuff to poison, a lot of poison to procure. He'd probably want to keep the number of people who knew to a minimum and avoid a servant sneaking a taste and dropping dead- no, the food wouldn't be it. That leaves the drink, and here we know that the menu will include the perfect medium. First, wine has a strong flavor that can disguise a potent poison, and second, the alcohol would speed up the absorption of the poison."

"Supposing the wine _is_ poisoned. What would do you do? You can't order people not to drink it."

Sandy paced a little longer, scratching at the back of her head as she thought. What could they do to make sure that the poisoned wine did not reach the guests? "The party is tomorrow night, right? We have time to come early and possibly infiltrate the palace. The wine has to be stored somewhere right? We don't need to do more than simply-"

"Doing anything to the wine before the party begins will compromise _my_ mission."

"Give me some credit Altair, I know _that_ much." Sandy spared him a look of annoyance. "I was actually thinking something along the lines of preventing the wine from being poisoned in the first place. It would have to be stored in a large container, that way the poison could be added evenly. Wouldn't want to under-lace a jug and miss some people, now would we?" she stopped and looked at him. "And here's where the previous theory of the food comes in, he can't order the wine poisoned too soon, servants might dip in little cups to take that one little sip no one will notice."

"Your theory relies on things happening exactly as you say. There are a hundred ways it could go wrong."

Sandy stopped as she realized where the miscommunication between them was happening. "I know perfectly well that it can fail, I am not a fool. Ultimately, I rather fail knowing I tried, than sit by and do nothing at all. You could say I am willing to gamble on this."

"But I am not letting you," Altair stated with a tone of finality.

Sandy turned away and let out a frustrated sigh. Then she heard a shuffle of clothing as he got to his feet, a second later his arms were wrapped about her waist as he pulled her toward his frame.

"Your kindness and mercy is admirable, but I am not willing to risk your life for theirs."

"If this is about duty-"

"No, this is my decision. Their lives are not worth yours."

Sandy turned around in his arms, focusing an unblinking stare up at him. "On what scale did you measure that?" she asked.

His hand rose to stroke her cheek, but he didn't reply. Sandy continued to stare up, daring him to make some sort of comment about female inequality or him simply not believing her capable. He would rue the day he was born if he fell back on those excuses. Her thoughts derailed as his hand moved to tilt her chin up as he bowed his head and their lips met. Of all the excused that he could have used, this one was the absolute last she would have expected. Before Sandy could earnestly return his kiss he pulled back. "Does that answer your question?" he asked, stepping back.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing Really.

**Director's Notes:**

Well this chapter seemingly wrote itself, a nice break from the previous hell I was having, trying to literally force myself to come up with something, shifting ideas after ideas to make things fit not only my future storyboard, but also the characters and the short term plot. This is why TV shows have teams of writers, I guess. I'm surprised it did not end up being a little longer; I tried to keep the excess stuff to a minimum. The next chapter should be a little bit harder, but still I have a pretty good idea of what I am going with it. Thank you everyone for having patience with this bum.


	31. Rebirth and the Deadly Party

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXXI:**__ Rebirth and the Deadly Party_

Sandy lay awake that night, unable to fall asleep despite the fact that she was tired. Her mind refused to shut down and the racket of her own thoughts kept her awake. Altair was fast asleep at her side and she lay perfectly still, figuring that he needed sleep more than she did. He was also the reason why her mind could not shut down for sleep, so she didn't need him awake, possibly making things worse in his innocuously oblivious manner. His actions that evening baffled her. She wanted to pretend that their meaning of was ambiguous, but she could not lie so blatantly to herself, there was nothing ambiguous about them. With that singular kiss he had offered her an unmistakable glimpse past the citadel walls surrounding his heart, and what she saw scared her a little. She had somehow managed to get the best assassin of Masyaf to actually feel something for her. In her mind she couldn't hope that it was more than a very strong fancy, some part of her was terrified at the thought of him feeling anything resembling love for her.

Yet as she lay there, the terror was surprisingly easy to ignore and shut out. Yes, he was an assassin, but he was also a man. She knew the man behind the blades well enough now to know that his actions were not out of a base impulse, he was not the type to act on base impulses. He was a very guarded, controlled man, and yet his armor had cracked that day. First when she had narrowly escaped the guards on the street, and even wider when she had wanted to risk her life for people she did not even know. He probably did not realize just how much his single kiss meant when put into the context of everything, but for her it was a singular confirmation that he felt something. She could forgive the over-protectiveness that stemmed from it. She knew that men in this century were different from the men of her time. There would have to be a discussion sometime along the line about his bouts of jealousy -if indeed that's what they were- but now was not the time.

She rolled unto her side facing him and closed her eyes, maybe she still wouldn't be able to fall asleep, but her mind was a little at ease now. Somehow it felt that rationalizing the affection made it a little easier to accept. Her heart knew the truth; it was her mind that needed assurances that this time it would be different. Altair was different from the others; it would _have_ to be different. For the first time in her life Sandy chose to have blind faith and roll the dice in the hope that her number would finally come up.

She didn't know when she managed to fall asleep, one second her thoughts were cycling in her head at the speed of light, the next she snapped awake as an arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her to its owner's chest, a piece of familiar metal digging into her lower ribs painfully. She shifted in his hold, sliding the mechanism of his hidden blade away from her ribs. Her eyes opened, the sky over Damascus was just beginning to brighten with the first hints of the sun's return. The darkness was pierced with the faintest glow from the east. Altair's breathing was almost against her neck, his whole body was hot, almost scalding. He defied science with that one, it was like body was perpetually running a fever, yet he wasn't sick. She figured that it probably had to do with him wearing what he wore so much; his body had probably adapted to run at an elevated temperature because it was perpetually overheated. She turned her head to stare at Altair, wondering if she should just go back to sleep and leave starting the day until later. There no way to know when it was that she had actually nodded off, so she didn't know how long she had been actually sleeping. It felt rather nice to be cuddled like that, even if it was compromising.

Sleep was still difficult not that she was awake again; with the debate of his feelings cleared for the time being, other concerns emerged to take their place in the forefront of her mind. As the sun continued to rise and the sky brightened, what felt like a heavy burden set on her shoulders. The dawn of a new day invariably brought made her think of things she had pushed aside the day before. The appointed day was upon them, she knew that come evening a large group of people would die for the madness of one individual, and there was nothing more she could do to stop it. There was no moving Altair; it wasn't his job to save people. He was an Assassin, not Superman. It bothered her, but to some degree she knew that this was the way things were meant to be. She couldn't be this time's Wonder Woman either and there was no use trying. The death of the Merchant King would have to do, it would have to be enough to placate the souls of all those who would die tonight. As she lay there thinking, it slowly began to seep into her consciousness and it became acceptable.

Sandy was startled by a conscious realization that this was the truth of war; the Merchant King was killing those he saw as his enemies. Was he all that different from the other crusaders, those who wielded the swords and maces? No. She was not running off after every other crusader, it would have been stupid to do that, and so she should not be trying to stop this one either. In a moment of clarity it finally began to sink in. She had almost acted on her urge to stop something that was unacceptable to future sensibilities. Said sensibilities did not apply to this time, she had to learn to stop trying to shoehorn them in. She was locked in a three way between the Crusaders, the Saracens, and the Assassins. Her one allegiance had to be to the man who slept by her side, the man she cared for.

She wanted to apologize to Altair then and there for losing her head like that. Then she wanted to thank him for stopping her insanity before she had a chance to act on it. He had never actually told her that she was acting insane, he had used a different excuse to tell her why she couldn't do something, but she knew that somewhere in the back of his mind he probably thought that her helping the enemy could not be allowed. She smiled warmly and turned to face him, letting his arm slide across her side and fall behind her back, and when she looked at him, she him staring back.

"Oh sorry if I woke you up," she murmured.

"I have been awake for a while now; you were too lost in thought to notice."

"I was thinking about important things." Sandy replied to excuse her newest bout of absent-mindedness. "I realized that you were right yesterday, and let us leave it at that.

Altair sat up, sparing her a grin. "I will assume the obvious- what are you planning to do today?"

"I'm stuck here, right? I'll probably help around with the pottery." She sat up as well, and stretched her arms up over her head until her shoulder bones shifted a little, snapping back into proper position without making a sound.

"Hear some more scandalous gossip," Altair stated blandly.

"That too." Sandy laughed.

Silence settled between them, it was still too early in the morning to begin the day, but Sandy didn't feel like going back to sleep then either. She shifted around, glancing at the assassin sitting at her side, and then up at the sky. The stars were fading now with the coming morning, but the brightest ones were still visible. "Akka after this?" she asked calmly.

"Yes." He replied.

Sandy sighed, "I still don't see how you will be able to get close to someone as high profile as William of Montferrat. I mean- no I'm not starting again, but-" she paused pondering. "I'm just having trouble understanding it."

"When the time comes we will find or make an opportunity."

There was a note of finality in his voice that Sandy did not miss. He probably did not want to think about the job at Akka before he had finished the work in Damascus. Sandy shook her head and realized that maybe he was right; thinking about Akka before the job in Damascus was complete would just distract the focus from the immediate. When chasing two rabbits, one invariably ended up losing both. "Don't mind me then. I have too much free time on my hands to actually think." She didn't want to add that she also couldn't stop thinking unless she was fully busy. It was like her mind would get stuck on one thing and not let go until all the details were hammered out. She eased back down and put her hands under her head, starting up at the sky through the trellises covering the yard. Watching as the stars vanished, blinking out one by one, as the sky continued to brighten with the rising sun. The sky seemed to be tinged with more red than normal. The few of the scattered clouds really picked up the color around their edges, remaining darker towards the middle. She wasn't superstitious, but a red dawn just seemed ominous.

Altair left the bureau in the middle afternoon, making his way to the Merchant King's palace via the rooftops, only descending to the street when he got to his destination. The small plaza in front of the palace was full with finely dressed guests bustling about in the pre-party excitement. A number of the city guards were gathered about, watching the gathering from the edges of the square. The poorer people mulled about hoping to benefit from the general good mood by begging off a coin or two. The invitees looked like they didn't have a care in the world, if only for the evening. There was excitement in the air as the conversations shifted and ebbed in volume, laughter rolled sometimes. Altair took his time to circle the palace, looking at the ways in an out. Every gate into the palace was guarded by four men, each carrying a sword. The main gates into the palace's courtyard were open; he could see additional guards milling inside. The sheer number of armed men told him that Cassandra was off on her supposition that the merchant king wouldn't want blood on his floors. What other purpose could so many armed guards serve, even in a gathering this big?

Altair entered the crowd, mingling among the guests; he knew that he could only get inside by blending into the crowd when the guests were finally allowed to enter the courtyard. He avoided lingering in one spot too long, always moving, seemingly searching for someone; in doing so he began to hear elements of the conversations around him.

"… that new fountain in the courtyard? I hear it was just recently installed. Quite a beautiful piece!" one of the guests spoke. The three men with whom he was talking turned to peer through the gates to the courtyard.

Altair paused to follow their gazes and noticed the statue of a woman carrying a jug set on top of a pedestal in the center of a fountain. Water was pouring out of the statue's jug into the pool at its feet, sparkling in the sunlight.

"Once again he is frivolously spending the money that should go towards the campaigns. Last year he had expanded the fountains behind the palace you know." One of the guests with the first speak stated, clearly not impressed with the new addition.

"His reign won't be long. Once the crusaders are banished Salah al-Din will not tolerate him."

"We already voiced concerns to his regent in Jerusalem. Nothing! Not even a reply!"

Altair watched the four men unobtrusively. They were very well dressed, but clearly oblivious to the sheer fact that the regent ruler was apparently corrupt too. It made sense why these men were invited to this party; they were a threat whose deaths would serve more than one purpose.

Then the guards barring the front gate stepped aside and the crowd seemed to rush inside, the volume of the conversations rising and becoming more excited. Altair stuck to the center of the group, tagging behind one of the guests who had come with a bodyguard of his own, a man dressed in dark colors, but wearing a loose white travelling cloak and head wrap that were still covered in the fine dust of the road.

The courtyard of the palace was decorated with strung up lanterns, and the pillars were draped in purple cloth. There were tables with fruits, cooked meats, nuts, and various other refreshments. As soon as the guests entered, the guards moved inside, now standing at the doors of the courtyard. The palace towered above, separated from the courtyard by a balcony up to which led two staircases. Up on it were two more guards, both dressed in finer clothing that the rest. One of them Altair recognized from the day before. The other was dressed similarly to him, but he was smaller and more heavily armed. Both looked down on the guests with a blank expression that belied nothing of whatever they were thinking.

It was then that other servants appeared, carrying yet more foods, most of which were exotic items that Altair had never seen before. Prepared and displayed in ornate dishes of porcelain from the Far East. The Merchant King was making a grandiose if ostentatious display of his wealth. The servant women themselves were dressed ornately, their faces covered in veils. A number of dancers emerged from their ranks, mingling among the crowd as they danced to the music played by the group of musicians who had emerged from another set of doors hidden behind the staircases leading up to the balcony. Altair paid attention to those doors, they were undoubtedly entrances to the servant quarters, inside there had to be a second access to the upper floors. He could use one of those doors to get to the balcony without being noticed. The two guards on the balcony were probably there to stop the people from venturing up, as the host would make an address from there. It would be a good place to strike him down in the confusion and pandemonium that would break out once even just one person dropped dead.

In the mean time Altair kept moving around the courtyard, as if mingling, but mostly keeping out of sight of the guards at the doors. He followed the white-clad bodyguard at a distance, sweeping the crowd all the same. The few jugs of drink that were on the carried about contained fruit drinks, and there was no sight of the wine yet. A dancer swept by him, moving sensuously to tempt the men in the crowd. Her dark eyes focused on him for a moment and she flicked her scarf in his general direction, smiling coyly behind her veil. Altair ignored her and turned back to the servant doors.

Time passed in a steady march and before long the party was in full swing. There was conversation and laughter all around him, the bustle was so thick that separating one from the others was next to impossible. Everyone seemed to be having a good time even without the host of the evening present. Altair was beginning to think that he may have to infiltrate the palace and hunt down his target in his chambers. A servant woman approached a group of four men nearby. She held a jug in her arms and Altair watched as she refilled their goblets. Even from the distance he saw that the liquid was too light and transparent to be the wine. The volume of the conversation suddenly changed as some people focused on the balcony. Altair turned his head and spotted his target as he emerged from the palace doors. He was a big man, clad ostentatiously in fur-trimmed purple robes, gray pants, yellow shoes, and a white turban. He walked with the strut of a king, clearly very proud of the garish display he had prepared. The two guards on the balcony were now standing half a step behind him on either side, both had their arms crossed and their expressions perfectly wiped blank of any emotion. The conversations around the courtyard died, the music quieted down as well, and the babbling water from the fountain was the only sound that remained.

The merchant king drew near to the balustrade and peered down on his guest. "Welcome, welcome!" He began. "Thank you all for joining me this evening. Please, eat, drink, enjoy all the pleasures I have to offer. Take your time, I will wait." The people whispered and at that moment Altair heard the fountain go silent. The person closest to it stared up at the statue, and before a long moment passed the fountain was flowing again. The liquid pouring from the jug now was red like blood; Altair realized that the wine had arrived. Around him people reacted with surprise and delight, crowding closer to slip their goblets under the stream issuing from the statue.

The assassin turned back to the merchant king. Unseen by everyone, the man's expression flashed with enjoyment. Altair glanced at the fountain again and just like that he knew that Cassandra had been right, the wine _was_ poisoned. The delivery was so novel that it would tempt just about anyone into taking a goblet-full. Serving it like that also meant that the timing of the poisoning was precisely controlled or coordinated, the merchant king wanted to watch. Altair edged toward the staircase slowly, passing around it toward the servant entrance. In the hustle of the guests displaying their delight no one saw him move in the opposite direction and vanish behind one of the large staircases.

"I trust everything is to your... satisfaction?" Abu'l called into the crowd. His response was an enthusiastic round of cheering from the guests. Altair pushed the door open enough to slip inside and closed it behind himself. The hallway here was dark, and for a moment his visions dimmed. Above the speech went on, but he couldn't hear it too clearly and he didn't care to listen either. He moved deeper, down the hallway. Here the dominant sound was becoming the bustle of the kitchens echoing through the hallway. As Altair moved nearer he spotted a thin narrow wooden staircase leading to the second level. He took it two steps at a time, careful to control the creaking of the wood at his feet. The hallway of the second level was a narrow windowless servant passage, sporadically lit by candles. He stuck to the wall as he crept in the general direction of the balcony, listening for any guards, but the palace was silent. Not far along he felt a breeze playing through cracks around a door and he listened through it. Hearing no one moving on the other side, he slid the door open and stepped out into the main hallway of the second level. The door he had just used was well disguised, and had no handle on the outside, just a small hole that looked like a chipped stone. The current of air here moved from the general direction of the balcony, Altair turned and tracked the breeze to its source. He walked past a number of rooms, always pausing for a split second to listen for life beyond their doors. Once or twice he thought he heard something, but moved past these doors swiftly and silently.

He was listening into another room when he heard a distant scream, a muted echo carrying through the hallway, but it told him that he was close to the balcony, he had to be. He sped up, knowing that that the poisoned wine had just taken affect. The noise level from outside rose quickly and dramatically, screams, shouts, and what sounded vaguely like combat. The hallway emerged into a small chamber and suddenly Altair knew where he was. The sounds from the courtyard were so close that he knew he had to be in one of the two antechambers that connected to the balcony, beyond the wooden door in front of him would be his target.

He put his hand to the door and pushed. The wood creaking was nearly inaudible into the pandemonium coming from the courtyard. He stepped unto the balcony behind Abu'l. The merchant was relishing in the chaos that he had caused, watching the scene as if it was ancient and gruesome entertainment. His two guards stood by his side, also watching, both had their hands on their swords. Beyond the balcony, the gates of the courtyard were closed, and the armed guards had sprung into action.

Altair did not think of the situation at hand, the unnecessary deaths all around him. He felt the familiar calm sensation as his instincts told him what to do. He reached for two of the throwing knives on his belt and let them fly. Each imbedded into the back of one of the guards. They stood for a long moment and then toppled forward. Abu'l saw them fall from the corner of his eye as he jumped. Then slowly, as if terrified of what he might see behind him, the merchant king turned to face the assassin. His eyes widened, but for Altair it happened in slow motion. Before Abu'l could move Altair charged, launching himself into the air at his shocked target. Abu'l emitted a shout of surprise as Altair grabbed him by the throat, topping the merchant over. His head hit the ground, dislodging the turban, and without an instance of hesitation Altair introduced his hidden blade between the man's ribs and into his lung.

"Wh-y have you d-one this?" Abu'l croaked, blood fast welling up from his throat.

Altair withdrew the hidden blade and reached for the feather marker in his pouch. "You stole money from the people of Damascus and murdered those who discovered your evil deeds." Altair replied, uncertain why he was even talking to his dying target.

The merchant king smiled in a manner that suddenly bothered Altair.

Choosing to ignore what it might mean he passed the feather through his victim's blood. As he did, the material of the purple robe shifted. Altair's eye caught a corner of white something sticking out. He recognized the material on sight and without a second thought plucked the vellum out. One edge was nicked and bloodstained from where his hidden blade had just missed going through it. But it was unmistakably a white vellum letter sealed with a familiar crest. Altair straightened and rolled the letter up hastily, tucking both it and the feather into his pouch.

The sound of pandemonium from below had finally died down, and barely an instant later there was an exclamation from below. Altair looked up; the guards had finished disposing of the guests that had not drunk enough poison. The yard was strewn with the bodies of guests, bleeding and otherwise, and even a number of the servants and the dancers had been killed. Blood was already running across the stone and into every crack and crevice, creating a spider web of red strings on the floor. The guards were rushing at the balcony from both sides, each brandishing a bloodstained sword. Altair turned and ran for it, entering the small antechamber, and then the palace. He ran down the hallway and to the other side of the building. Here there were large arched windows that offered view to the large gardens behind the palace. Altair spotted two more guards patrolling the gardens. Knowing that fighting two was better than six he vaulted over the window frame and to the ground below.

Landing on solid marble made for a jarring landing, but he straightened and kept going.

"Stop! You are not supposed to be here!" one of the guards shouted.

Altair ignored him as he ran; the two guards were converging on him now. Altair knew that it was only a matter of time until those who had followed him into the palace got to the ground level and came after him as well. He knew he couldn't pause to dispose of even these two. Instead he turned and ran for the large, pool-like fountain. In the middle of it was an island of stone that offered him a shortcut to the path leading to the side gate. He leapt over the gap on the run, carrying speed for the second jump, clearing it effortlessly. The guards cursed and turned to run in the opposite direction to head him off.

The guards at the side gate were slow to respond, they rushed at him, but Altair didn't stop, their ranks were spaced widely enough for him to run through. Second later he was out the gate and on the street. The people mulling about were oblivious to what had just happened inside the palace, but his arrival created a mini storm. The shouts of the guards behind him caused the crowds to separate and ebb like great schools of fish. Parting for him and closing ranks again as he passed, at times barring the paths of the guards who had to push and shove through, eliciting even more panic from the confused and shocked people. Altair couldn't find s spot to blend into, so he was forced to run flat out, ducking into the nearest dark alley as soon as he could. He didn't stop there and swiftly moved down the alley and took a turn, soon emerging unto another major street, which he crossed into another equally dark alley. Once there he ran down its length and stayed in the maze of the alleys until he emerged unto a major street at the edge of the rich district, far from the palace. It was there that heard the first peals of the town alarm bells. The slowness of the response surprised him, but he ignored them. The merchant king's guards would not be able to spread his description fast enough. The city guard seemed to have no part in the whole affair, they had been caught by surprise as much everyone else.

The first peals of the town's alarm bells shattered all of Sandy's ability to focus on the task at hand. The ringing sound was different in each city as were the bells producing it, but it still meant one of two things, either Altair had finished his job and was coming back to the bureau, or he had failed and was fighting for his life. There was no way to tell by the sound of the bells, and that's what made her very nervous. She set down the pottery tool she was holding out for the rafiq, suddenly no longer interested in helping. She knew that it had to be the former, she earnestly wanted to believe his claims that he was the best and could not mess up a job, but some part in the back of her mind was cynical and insisted on saying that no one was flawless. Being flawless and perfect was an affront to nature, and against the laws of the universe itself.

"Worrying are we?" the rafiq asked, cutting into her thought.

"Wha-" Sandy turned to look at the man, noticing his smile. The fact that she had been caught unaware, floating lost in thought again made her flush in embarrassment. The rafiq's smile got even wider and took on a knowing tone that seemed paternal and amused at the same time.

"I understand entirely of course." The rafiq continued.

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it!" Sandy stated, suddenly very uncomfortable. The rafiq watched her for a moment then shook his head and chuckled. Sandy's reaction was instantaneous, the heat in her face got even more intense and before she realized how it would look, she reached over her head to pull up the hood of her cloak, concealing her face in its depths.

"There's no need to be shy, Lady Informant. I understand you were lost in thought… everyone has those moments."

"Me more than everyone else combined," she muttered. "I'm absent-minded like that."

"Nonsense! With your intelligence- whatever captures your mind in such a manner must be profound."

Sandy sighed, she knew that the rafiq was probably trying to console her a little; she wasn't going to argue that her only profound thought at the time had been what she would do if Altair did not come back. That cynical part of her mind was always predicting doom and gloom, and at the times when the alarm bells were pealing as they were then, it was harder to ignore it. "I guess I was thinking about Altair's next target," she lied quite weakly.

"Ah, so I was right, most profound indeed. Always so eager to help Altair, you lady are indeed very dedicated to your work, it is commendable. Who is the unfortunate fellow then? Perhaps I could be of some advice?" The rafiq asked in an almost airy but calm businesslike efficiency.

Sandy contemplated explaining, but wondered if she should. It is true that maybe he could have an idea; he was a very high ranked individual and much friendlier than the rafiq of Akka, who Sandy wanted to avoid at all costs. "William of Montferrat," she stated quietly, as if the name was some sort of magical incantation or oath, and speaking it out loud would warn the man himself that there was an assassin on his heels. The conversation seemed to die then and there, with only the alarm bells preventing a complete silence.

"I see the source of your worries," the rafiq spoke after a long moment, all joviality leaving his words. "Yes, he would be a most challenging target. The liege lord of Akka, there is much to say about him, but little that will pertain to the task at hand. He is a powerful man, well connected, and is in a position of trust with King Richard," the rafiq paused to gather his thoughts. "The timing of this job is good; luck should be on your side. King Richard and much of his host are preparing to march south to Jaffa; Akka will not be as protected as it was just after its fall."

"It still will not make the whole thing easy."

"You are right of course. It will not make the task easy, but perhaps a little _easier_ than it would have been otherwise. His march will not be a swift or easy one; Salah ad-Din will not let him take Jaffa without a fight. I would assume there will be a battle before the crusaders reach the walls of Jaffa. Richard would have to be a fool not to see that eventuality; as such he will probably take his strongest with him. He is particularly keen on showing off the power of his favorites at the moment; I assume you can guess whom I'm talking about."

"The Templars?" Sandy asked weakly.

"Astute as ever, Lady Informant!" the rafiq chorused.

Sandy blushed under her hood again. She didn't want this man to know that she had been guessing.

"Yes, with the assassination of Garnier de Naplouse, the Hospitallers have for the moment lost their unity, and with it their effectiveness. It will take time for a new Grand Master to be chosen, word has undoubtedly been sent to Rome for the approval of appointment. Any acting leader now would not have the support of the whole order. In the meanwhile, Robert de Sable was quick to capitalize on this moment to seize the king's favoritism."

"Which is given for him. One does not become the Grand Master of one those orders without ample ambition and arrogance," Sandy noted. "Apparently sucking up to the superiors helps too," She smirked.

"You see amusement in the matter, why is that?" the rafiq wondered.

"Let us say that I think I am beginning to understand _monsieur_ de Sable better than he would probably like his enemy to understand him." Sandy tried not to seem too smug at the moment, but it was difficult, she felt every bit as smug as she sounded. The rafiq did end up helping, though not quite in the manner he had set out to, and not quite in the manner that would be most beneficial at the moment. Still, he had given her valuable clues to the psyche of their main enemy. Robert de Sable was clearly an opportunist of the first order; going as far as turning a presented disadvantage it into an advantage on a second front. Perhaps he had even planned for such an event all along, set up his pawns in such a manner that even their loss would benefit him. With understanding of a man's motives came a certain degree of foresight. Still she remained grounded, knowing too well that while she could know a lot about him, he would still remain a very dangerous individual. She felt a grudging sort of respect forming for such a cunning intellect. She knew that she had underestimated him before, thinking that he was a stereotypical pious man. She blamed that on more twenty-first century bias. Now that she had proof of other motives under the surface she could adjust her perception of him. She made a mental note to add this new knowledge to her 'file' on the man in question. It could prove very useful in the long run.

"You are musing again." The rafiq stated.

Sandy opened her mouth to try and weasel out of revealing what she had been thinking about when she heard a loud thump from the garden. She was on her feet in a heartbeat, the rafiq turned to the yard entrance and a second heartbeat had hardly passed when Altair stepped in. Sandy smiled and pulled off her hood, she considered herself saved by the bell. Somehow it didn't feel right to be saying that she actually began to respect the enemy for his uncanny ability to manipulate circumstances. Still, as far as she was concerned, such an intellect had to be respected, or one risked being undone by it.

"Abu'l Nuqoud is dead," Altair announced, brandishing the blood stained feather.

"Excellent!" the rafiq replied. "The lady was quite worried once the bells started tolling, but I was quite sure that you would complete your mission regardless of the troubles."

Sandy blushed again and tried to avert her eyes as Altair's gaze invariably fell on her. "Welcome back," she said rather weakly.

"She always worries for nothing," Altair replied flippantly.

"Well, I'm sorry for believing you are _human_, Altair." Sandy stated, grinning playfully as she brushed past him into the yard. Now that he was safe and sound she could relax and hope that the alarm bells would still soon. The sound was aggravating as soon as it stopped inducing anxiety.

It was half an hour before the town bells stilled, and almost as long before Sandy's ears stopped ringing with the echo of the sound. She was lying on her back enjoying the sunlight. One utterly random thing she realized about this time was that with the more complete ozone layer and less pollution she was actually tanning slowly. The covering cloak and hood slowed down the process, but she was positive that in a couple more months and she'd have a tan to die for. She was just glad that she was tanning and not in fact burning.

Her musings were broken by a footsteps and a familiar clinking. Sitting up she glanced at Altair, their gaze locked and then Sandy noticed that he was clearly bothered by something or other. His eyes looked darker and stormier, less golden brown and closer to chocolate brown. "What's up?" she asked quietly.

"You were right about the wine." He announced.

Sandy nodded her head, not even bothering to pretend to be oblivious as to what he was referring.

"The wine was served from the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, and he killed all those who witnessed the poisoning. You were right about his desire for secrecy."

"Shady men rarely do shady business in broad daylight," Sandy murmured.

Altair eased himself into a sitting position beside her and reached up to pull down his hood. He looked at her, as if he was judging her attitude. Sandy placed her hand on his forearm and looked down as she tried not to look like it was bothering her. She knew that if the wine was served from a fountain, it had to have a reservoir. She could have stopped the whole bloodbath if she had been able to get to that reservoir.

"There was nothing you could have done."

"I know that. I just wish that I had been wrong about the whole affair."

"You were wrong in part; he did resort to blades when the poison failed."

Sandy froze like a pole and then shook her head and sighed. "Then maybe it is a good thing that I did not prevent the poisoning. It really would have been me risking my life for nothing. Thank you, Altair." She glanced up, but she couldn't make herself display any sort of emotion, instead she looked back down and tried not to fidget. As far as she was concerned, innocent people had still died for nothing that day. She was glad that Altair had succeeded in his mission, let the merchant king's death be his atonement for his sins. She heard rustling and looked up; Altair was pulling something from his pouch.

"The merchant king was carrying this."

Sandy took the vellum letter from his hands and carefully avoided touching the bloodstains. "Well this is certainly interesting," she inspected the before opening the letter. The seal was already cracked in half, the letter had been read by it recipient. The nick from Altair's hidden blade had created a slit along the fold, but since the letter was made of vellum the blood had just soaked into the outside of the material and was only beginning to seep into the inside before it had been dried by body heat and pressure.

"The handwriting is the same as the well letter. Same accents on the letters, same flourish on the signed R at the bottom." She began to read the letter and her eyes widened with each line as she read. "Holy-" she murmured. "Robert _knew_ about the death party. Abu'l meant to flee to Akka and let the situation in Damascus simmer down a little. Robert ordered him to stay put, though he did warn him about _you_." She looked up at the assassin.

The gears in her mind were revving at full speed. The letter aligned with the pattern that she had discerned from the bits of information the rafiq had given her earlier. Further evidence that convinced her that Robert de Sable's was an opportunistic snake in the grass, but more than that, she was beginning to see a second trait. While Robert had merely capitalized on the advantage of Garnier's death as an added bonus, now he was willing to sacrifice the merchant king outright. Sandy reasoned that it was because Robert did not want the merchant anywhere near Akka where his presence would be potentially compromising. Sandy didn't have to think too hard or too long to realize why Robert did not want anyone who was technically Salah ad-Din's supporter anywhere near him, especially not now when he was successfully maneuvering himself into an advantageous position with Richard. There was just one question remaining, why Akka? She'd think Jerusalem would be a better hidey-hole than crusader HQ, especially if one _was_ trying to pass off as a Saracen. There had to be a reason, but she wouldn't take a leap of logic on it, there was too little information available at the moment to make a solid guess.

"I'm beginning to understand Robert de Sable, Altair. It's something the rafiq said when you were off doing your job. Robert is an opportunist, but he is also very cunning."

"It's obvious."

"Bear with me here, alright? He's clearly very cunning, but more than that, he is _ruthlessly_ cunning. He used Garnier's death to position himself in Richard's good books. He's a schemer; he will turn disadvantages into advantages on the fly. He plays speed chess with people as pawns, and he's not above sacrificing a couple when a gambit calls for it." She paused, noticing Altair's skeptical expression. "But there is a flaw in that sort of game. It requires commitment, some of these moves he makes- pawns cannot move backwards. If he is off his game even by one move it could be all over. We just have to make sure we don't miss an opportunity for turnabout play."

Altair opened his mouth to say something but Sandy knew that look and boldly raised her hand, putting a finger to his lips.

"I know perfectly well that that's all easier said than done, but-" she paused, "if I can read his moves, I can make sure we don't blunder into a traps unaware. That alone is a battle won."

Altair took her hand in his and wound his fingers through hers. "Just don't do anything stupid." He stated.

"Don't worry about me; I won't stick my neck out. Let him think there is no one out there who is capable of figuring out his game. Let him have his false sense of security, it's to our advantage too."

"You are taking too much responsibility for someone of your rank." Altair argued.

Sandy spared him a chilled look; the words were on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to say that as far as pawns went, this one was just one move away from upgrading, but knew that such a cheek would not fly with Altair. It would sound like she was trying to do too much, trying to out step the boundaries of her rank. Some part of her was willing to accept that maybe even his understanding and acceptance of her differences, and needs for respect and independence had a cut-off line, and testing it then and there might not be a good idea. "I am an informant, Altair. I gather and process information as it comes. Admittedly I would give you a suggestion on a plan of action, but the decision is still up to you. So no, I do not think that I have overstepped any sort of boundary." She smiled instead; let him wrestle with that one. It was an excuse worthy of a corporate lawyer back home and she was darn proud of it too.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

Nothing Really.

**Director's Notes:**

This chapter was somewhat hard to write, at first I had a bit of a problem with the motivation for the action sequence, I had trouble adapting the game sequence into the more 'realistic' framework of the fic. Then, when I polished it out I realized that I had a point A, and a point C… but no point B. The initial storyboard for point C was quite different, when I had a shock of inspiration for point B that came out from a single line delivered by the rafiq of Damascus… I ended up with a point B that did not connect to the established point C. Had to change point C and reroute things, but I am glad to say that I worked everything out and the new storyboard is definitely better than the old one. Point of this mini rant, the chapter is late for a reason, and I have a very hard job. Though I do think the extra work is the reason I'm better that most OC authors out there… anyways- You may have noticed that Sandy had that bit of revelation about priorities and changed her thinking in a bit of character development. This brings about the end of this arc and this being the final chapter with a very themed title I want to give people a clue to the theme. The secret is in the first word of each sequential title.


	32. Opening Gambits, Part I

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**

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Chapter XXXII:**__ Opening Gambits, Part I_

The journey from Damascus to Akka took two days. The two of them set off the morning after the party and arrived the next evening. Their journey was stalled by a large group of Salah ad-Din's soldiers. The few hundred men were moving south toward Jaffa and Arsuf, and to avoid trouble the two of them had to give them a wide berth. That evening they stopped in the craggy hills overlooking the city. The fields surrounding the walls were just as depressing as they had been the last time they had visited. Still scarred from the fighting, but thankfully something had been done about the monumental stench that had been prevalent the previous time they had been there.

The great mass of troops stationed outside the city had many campfires going, which glowed like candles in the twilight. Overall the camp seemed to have the air of a very busy place, writhing with activity. Some of it focused around the paddocks housing the army's horses. The beasts were easier to see in the gloom because of their size. Sandy estimated there to be roughly a three hundred, but she doubted the humble number included the mounted knights of the Templars and Hospitallers who would keep their beasts in their own stables. It was a small number, but given that a mounted knight was still this century's version of a tank, it made sense.

Sandy turned away from the view and looked at the assassin standing by her side, "I was thinking about this when we were riding. William is a high profile target, you can't march into his camp and shiv him. Too much could potentially go wrong. Timing will be the most important aspect of this mission."

"I knew that." Altair stated blandly. "And I already know where. He will be staying in the city citadel." He raised his arm and pointed.

Sandy followed his line of sight, she couldn't see the citadel very well from their location, but it did seem to have one prominent tower. All she could see was that it was surrounded by a wall, a miniature city within the larger city. "Do you think they will set off soon?" Sandy asked calmly. "If I know anything about military affairs, the impatience of the troops before the start of another march makes for some very jumpy triggers- or in this case swords."

"Soon," Altair replied.

Sandy nodded and continued to stare down at the camp. "I had a talk with the rafiq of Damascus before you arrived from the party- we may be in luck. It seems like Robert had managed to get into Richard's good graces. He used your assassination of Garnier to his full advantage. The rafiq thinks Richard will want to use his new favorites fully in his campaign on Jaffa. Robert will not be in town."

"He does not need to lead a campaign, he has deputies."

Sandy shook her head. "True, but my gut tells me that he isn't above getting into the thick of things himself. He manipulates from the shadows, but somehow- I don't think he'd have gotten that high up without displaying a lot of prowess. He can't be much older than Tony, and somehow I don't think a thirty-year old can become a Grand Master for his sunny personality. No, I am pretty sure that he would want to cement his glory by being out there in the thick of things, he'd want to be there to get his accolades when all is said and done." Altair remained quiet and Sandy thought that maybe she had overstepped some boundary. Really that deduction was just a conjecture, something she normally did not like to fall back on. This time though, the conjecture seemed to connect with something inside. Her gut insisted that it was right. "He does love his con game." She added. "And he thinks he will never be caught at it. I mean the female steward is a big risk, and yet he clearly keeps her around for something, he thinks there is no way in hell someone will figure that out."

"Stop dancing about it," Altair stated.

"Fine. Here's what my gut tells me on that subject. Dear Robert, and his dear steward… well, somehow I get the feeling they're not all that different from us." Altair turned to stare at her with a look in his eyes that confirmed that she had said something that crossed some sort of boundary. Sandy raised her hands in a surrender to ward off whatever acrid comment was on the tip of his tongue. "Hear me out. I don't mean it _that_ way. You said it yourself, you both do your jobs, and that's that. What I meant was that the relationship between the master and steward there- could be like ours." Altair continued to stare down at her as if she was some sort of alien. Sandy lowered her hands and pouted. Okay it was a cliché sort of thing to say, not every relationship between a man and a woman involved sexual attraction, but somehow her gut was adamant about it. Sandy wrapped her arms around one of his and drew herself close, peering into his eyes. "As much as you want to believe otherwise, they are as human as the rest of us."

"You're sympathizing with them."

"I'm only human, Altair." Sandy replied. "Anyways, if my gut is right- I can use this knowledge to my –and ultimately your- advantage." She grinned, nothing like showing him that her gut feeling could be used to his benefit.

"There we go. Back to normal."

Sandy couldn't help, she laughed. Somehow she would have never thought that showing her own ability to manipulate anything would ever appease anyone, but Altair seemed to take it all in stride. It seemed like he had come to expect that from her; that she would always figure out how to use anything to their mutual advantage, like it was in her job description or something. Oh well, in these times the new rule book didn't apply yet, if manipulating someone kept her safe, then by Jove she'd play them like a fiddle. Sandy still drew the line at the amount of manipulation, she was not going to blackmail and extort people, but if her knowledge got her out of a sticky situation, then all was fair in love and war. She turned back to the army camp and stared into the gloom.

"How do you intend to get us inside this time?" Sandy asked.

Altair glanced at her and surprisingly chuckled, "The same way as last time."

In the morning they completed the ride to the gates of the city, melding into the ever-present crowd of merchants and traders. There were crusaders crawling all over the place, more than just those standing at the gates proper. Some were members of the army camp, mulling about with their breakfast, looking bored and anxious at the same time. Sandy decided that it was a rather bad combination. Boredom would make them seek excitement and anxiousness would make them see something amiss in the ordinary. Their arrival drew plenty of undue attention; Sandy wanted to think that it was because of Altair's one-man-army arsenal. The crusaders were obviously on edge and someone so heavily armed and clearly no one of them was bound to raises a few eyebrows. Altair's white tunics stood out even in this sea of multicolored rabble. She saw few people with full chainmail, most of those there wore scattered pieces of it. Some wore suits that looked slightly rusted around the edges and a few wore just plain padded armors that were better suited to the extreme heat of the Middle East.

The army looked like a sordid and motley bunch. Many of them seemed hardly older than she was, and perhaps even younger. Probably bloated up on rhetoric or forced by their feudal dues, they had taken the vows before they had thought things through. Thrust headlong into fighting in the harsh conditions of Palestine for little glory and even less hope of actually achieving anything. If anyone would get any glory from these campaigns, it would be the noble liege-lords in their forts and castles, those who seldom cared for their men, and only when they needed someone to wield swords. In a way Sandy was beginning to pity the grunts, they probably still had some hope left that they could succeed, but she knew there was no point. History would run its course and the third crusade would stall after the conquest of Jaffa.

Sandy couldn't help but wish to get out of sight; there were those among the men who were leering at anything female. Clearly it had been too long since some of them had been with their wives or in a brothel. Only when she grasped Altair's arm did they seem to realize that she was too dangerous a leering target. "I pity these folks," she murmured to the assassin, "so many of them will not see home again. I can sort of relate to that." Altair glanced down at her but did not reply, Sandy tried to smirk, but the truth was that she emphasized with the rabble of the infantry more than even her words hinted. In a way she was a lot like them, far away from home with little or no chance of going back. She wasn't going to mope too much; she had decided long ago that moping over her lot in life would be counterproductive. She would make due with the hand of cards dealt to her, and make the best of it. No matter how bleak things seemed, she still didn't get the rawest deal, she was blessed to have good friends, and a place to call home in this time.

They walked their horses toward the city's gates; Sandy was still not sure what would get them past the watchful guards. "You wouldn't be planning on using my acting skills, would you?" she asked, squeezing his arm hard enough to make sure he knew what she though of the idea.

"No. I plan to simply walk past."

"It was good knowing you then," Sandy replied, not missing a beat.

Altair stopped in his pace and looked down at her, "What do you suggest?" he asked.

"The usual, we wait for some merchants and tag along behind them. Failing that-" Sandy stopped there, unsure of what to suggest. As far as having a plan B went she was drawing an utter blank at the moment. What could they do if there were no merchants to tag along behind? If this was a movie, the heroes would steal some surcoats, cloaks, and helmets to sneak themselves through like Trojan horses, but she didn't think that sort of thing would work in real life. "Okay I'm blank," she admitted, pouting.

Suddenly there was uproar, nearby one of the infantry rabble had gotten into an argument with one of the merchants milling about. The merchant was holding a woman by the arm, perhaps his wife, slinging insults and accusations at the infantry man who was protesting that he hadn't realized who the woman was. Sandy felt revulsion rising in her throat, the man had clearly been up to no good. The uproar escalated as the bodyguards of the merchant moved in, and the infantry man was backed up by his friends. The shouting escalated in volume and viciousness until the guards standing at the gates had no choice but to draw their blades and move in to restore order. The second they moved, a few wily merchants on the other side of the gate road moved to sneak past them.

"This is our chance," Altair announced.

"Goody!" Sandy replied sarcastically, still eyeing the fighting bunch. They used the body of their horses as a shield, placing the beasts between themselves the cacophony. Sandy was surprised how easy it was getting into the city with a good, if utterly spontaneous diversion. They weren't the only ones to use the opportunity and by the time the guards realized that they had made a mistake in moving it was too late.

Sandy and Altair made their way to the traveler stables and managed to a find a booking at twice the normal price. Space had seemingly become a premium commodity in the last two weeks as the stable-hand remarked. The handlers were also quick to charge inflated prices for the 'last box' the visitor was 'lucky' to find in their lodgings. The city was positively an ant-hill of activity, teeming with life. The citizens seemed bent on quietly enduring it all, but it was clearly noticeable who was a foreigner or not. Furthermore, everywhere they looked there were armed men. Some of them wore the reds and whites of Richard's knights. There was also a presence of white-mantled, black-crossed Teutonic Knights. Once or twice they saw a Hospitaller, but their presence seemed diminished somehow. Overall the city seemed to bristle with anticipation and Sandy wondered if this would end up helping or harming Altair's chances in the end. The whole mission of getting in and out of somewhere without getting into a fight with every sword-wielding knight in the city seemed impossible.

Getting to the Bureau proved a challenge on its own, getting to the roof without being seen seemed impossible. Sandy grimaced as she thought of meeting the rafiq of Akka. He had been somewhat unpleasant the previous time; she didn't think that it would change spontaneously. She landed in the bureau's courtyard with a wince, almost losing her balance in the process. Altair was already moving towards the doorway and she followed him, shedding the hood of her cloak. Her entrance caught the rafiq mid sentence as he commended Altair on getting rid of the 'bothersome' woman, colored with a sideways insult that it was the first thing that Altair had done right. She smiled like Mona Lisa and stood half a step behind Altair, strategically at his right side. Maybe it was too a western message to send, or maybe it wasn't a message at all, but she could've sworn that his eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. In either case it was her subtle form of flying the proverbial birdie without being crass and unladylike.

"I stand corrected then," the man spoke after a loaded pause. "Who is the target this time?"

Sandy through that the lapse into business was too sudden to be wholly proper, but she was going to let him get away with it. There was no way that she would get something resembling an apology for the comment.

"I was sent to end the life of William of Montferrat," Altair replied, as if he was utterly unaware of the cold war happening right over his head.

"It will be a difficult job, Al Mualim should have sent another with you, not just your- _assistant_."

Sandy bit her tongue to stop herself from snapping; instead she put up the same congenial Mona Lisa smile. She had to tell herself that there was no use snapping, it would not win her any victory.

"Richard had named William regent and tasked him with the defense of the city while he marches on Jaffa," the rafiq went on. "It is a strange choice given the animosity between Richard and William's son, Conrad, but perhaps a very clever one. Richard and Conrad do not see eye to eye on most matters. Though they are civil enough in public, there are whispers that both intend evil upon the other. There was also the matter of the Saracen prisoners- Conrad had since returned to Tyre and Richard had compelled William to remain in Akka as his guest."

"You mean his hostage," Altair replied calmly.

Sandy looked from one man to another, unsure of what to make of this whole thing. Clearly there was something going on that she was not privy too, something to do with politics. It was probably nothing too vital to the mission at hand, but she hated being out of the loop. She made a mental note to ask Altair to clue her in later, for now she would pretend that she actually knew what the hell was going on.

"Whatever you wish to call it," the rafiq replied. "William's presence here would dissuade Conrad from trying anything while Richard is gone."

"I've never been one for politics," Altair stated.

"Surely you realize that your every action has political ramifications," the rafiq noted, though Sandy picked up a very thinly disguised note of frustration in his voice. "You are quite the politician yourself, in a manner of speaking." The man added.

Sandy had to admit he was right, though there was something else that was bothering her now. Altair could ignore the politics, but she thought they were pretty important. How would William's assassination affect politics precisely? If Richard had placed William to use as a pawn to control his son, what would the pawn's removal do? More than ever she realized that she needed the big political picture, she had to find out more.

"Where would you have us search?" Altair asked.

The rafiq paused, giving the assassin a strange look, "Go southwest of here, the market in front of the citadel, after that the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Both are popular meeting places for the talkative citizens and soldiers."

"Very well," Altair glanced as Sandy. She mouthed the word 'breakfast', giving him a cross look that said she was not going anywhere until she was fed. Altair glared back for all of a split second before he turned towards the kitchen and Sandy followed him wordlessly. There they found a humble meal, but the bread was fresh and fruits were ripe. Sandy rinsed her hands before she even touched the food.

"I know you don't care for politics, Altair, but I'm out of the loop. What is this feud the rafiq was talking about?" she asked before taking the first bite.

"It goes back about four years ago, before Salah ad-Din retook Jerusalem from the crusaders. The crusader king of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, lost the city when he lost the Battle at the Horns of Hattin. He was only king because of his marriage to the legitimate queen. Conrad's marriage to the late queen's half sister gives him an equally legitimate claim to the throne. Richard meanwhile supports the claim for Guy."

Sandy shook her head, "That is to say, they're both pretenders, and they're counting their chickens before they hatch. It does not matter who's the king, they really should focus on getting Jerusalem back first." When Sandy looked up from her food, she noticed that Altair was staring at her as if she had said something otherworldly and bizarre. She realized that she probably had; after all, men did not always view things as objectively as she could. Even rarer was the even when men acted on such thinking. "I guess I do see why they would squabble." She added hastily. "But seriously… it's pointless at this point."

"I agree," Altair stated, with amusement clear in his voice. "It is fortunate for everyone that they do insist on squabbling."

"If they didn't this whole crusade might just go completely differently," Sandy finished the unspoken thought. "Back to the target though- I wonder how William fits into puzzle here. I mean all our targets thus far have had affiliations with the Templars, it stands to reason that so does this one…" she trailed off. There was something nagging in the back of her mind. Suddenly William seemed more than just a high profile target, he was a powder keg. More than anyone previously he was affiliated in the shaky balance of politics in the region, it didn't sit well with her at all to shiv without asking the loaded questions. Though she knew enough not to ask those questions out loud as it would be questioning the master of the assassins. She wasn't dumb enough to think she could get away with such a thing. She had to be conscious of how shaky her own position was.

She looked at Altair and for the first time she wished she could read his mind. Did he really not see something so amiss? Or was it only her who thought that things were amiss at all. Perhaps he was a good little soldier boy, fulfilling his orders without questioning them. Somehow that seemed wrong, he had a reputation for insubordination, and it had to have come from somewhere. She decided that she could only see how things would play out; right now there were too many questions. "One more thing, Altair. I kind of forgot to ask before- what was that affair with Saracen prisoners the rafiq mentioned?"

"After the city fell, three thousand Saracen prisoners were taken to pressure Salah ad-Din into fulfilling all the terms of the surrender he had been given. Richard had them all executed a week ago."

Sandy's jaw dropped; three thousand prisoners? "W- why?" she stuttered.

"Ask him yourself if you dare," Altair replied.

"Why am I only discovering about this now?" Sandy asked without missing a beat.

"It is not important to our mission."

She pouted but decided not to press her luck further down that path. Her mind still boggled at the scope of the genocide that had happened without her knowledge. What bothered her more was that she wasn't told. She couldn't decide if she should be angry with Altair over that one. On the one side she understood that it really wasn't important to the mission, on the other side she felt like she was being patronized, sheltered, and purposefully kept ignorant. She didn't like the thought of Altair displaying any such form of chauvinism. "I still would have appreciated to know," she murmured. "I mean-"

"I will not apologize," Altair cut in coolly.

Their gazes met over the table and Sandy flashed him a glare. "Fine." She stated and went back to her food. It was shallow to be actually angry at him at that moment, but she couldn't help but feel some resentment. She knew that the feeling would not last long either, she could never remain angry with someone for long, not even someone who slighted her grievously, and this was Altair, his infraction was minor at best.

"Finish your breakfast, we will go to the citadel market-"

Sandy looked up suddenly and then turned away, "I would go to the Cathedral first," she voiced.

"Why?" Altair asked.

"Build from the ground up, we do not want to be too close to the fortress where you will have to operate clandestinely. If we are seen- I would like to keep that source of information to the absolute last, follow up all the other leads first, see what that yields us. Altair you can't afford any compromise on this one, it's too risky." She got no reply from Altair, but she liked to think that he agreed at least in part. His silence had to be some form of assent, if he was against the idea he would've said so in a heart beat.

"So it is true, your friend dictates you how to do your job." The rafiq's voice drifted over the silence that settled between the two. Sandy's head whipped up, meeting eyes with the man. He had an extremely distasteful expression on his face, as if she was scum from the bottom of a pond.

"I let her propose her advice, whether I listen to her is up to me."

Sandy knew Altair would never listen to her now, he wouldn't want to seem like he was her puppet. She gritted her teeth together and kept her mouth shut, they would just have to be very careful around the fortress. She wasn't going to push her case in front of the rafiq and end up proving him right.

"That much is already out of her boundary of rank," The rafiq argued.

Sandy knew he was baiting at her, he wanted her to snap, to defend herself. She had to remind herself of the fact as a silent mantra. She could not, and would not rise to the occasion and snap. She would've loved to tell him a few colorful words on what she thought of that boundary, but knew to keep her cool. Reigning down her anger as much as she could she put up a Mona Lisa smile and turned to the man. The expression probably caught him off guard; he didn't expect her to be smiling at all. "I never realized that little ol' me was that much a threat," she said the words as if musing on something rather inarticulate and disconnected, faking the perfect clueless ditz, but she knew she hit something when the rafiq's whole desire to continue the talk collapsed like a house of cards.

"Come, we have places to be," Altair stated, motioning to the door.

Sandy was only too happy to get up and follow Altair out of the room and towards the yard. She knew that she had said too much, but as much as she could reign in her anger, sometimes there was no dam tall enough to control it all, it still ended up spilling over. Altair helped her up unto the roof and she followed behind him as he went looking for a safe way down to the street.

Now outside the bureau Sandy found that she could think more clearly. She could also relax her hold and let her mood darken all she wanted. As long as she walked behind Altair, he didn't have to see the murder in her eyes. They descended to street level at a nearby alley and then found the main street. There were people everywhere; all of them were clearly European. Some in groups and some alone, some had pinned crosses to their clothing, showing their vows to help the crusade in any way they could. Generally the mood of the city was improved after the last time they had been there, but the ominous cloud of death still hung about like a miasma.

As they walked, Sandy noticed that Altair was steering towards the cathedral. She could see a spire rising over the rooftops. The crowd was getting thicker and shabbier too, with more armed men mingling in their midst. When they passed another building unto a new street, it opened up to the Cathedral square. There were three tiers of steps leading to the magnificent church. Up close Sandy realized that it had two spires, one was either broken or incomplete, she would bet on the latter.

There, patrolling the perimeter of the church were six men, all of them were wearing helmets and had their hands on their swords. As they passed, she heard them conversing rapidly, it was hard to discern any topic and she didn't think it would be a smart idea eavesdropping on paranoid, sword-wielding knights. Sandy ascended to the top of the steps, and at the base of the third flight she looked back and realized that Altair had fallen behind. He was staring at something; she turned her head and followed his line of sight.

"Out of the way!" a gruff voice shouted.

Sandy jumped and looked; there at the top of the steps coming down was another pair of knights, both clad in the red and white livery of Richard's army. The two had no helmets, but they looked like they had a hurricane brewing over their heads. She could practically see the swirling cloud formation.

"Sorry," she muttered, deciding not to pick a fight with the two, to let them pass even if there was plenty of space on the steps for them to go around her.

"Oy, it's a woman!" the other chorused, amused at the discovery.

"Weirdly dressed under that cloak." The first stated.

The two knights stopped on the steps and drew near, their hands leaving the hilts of their swords. "Where you from?" the first asked.

Sandy couldn't help but feel nervous, "I'm- I just came to the holy land… I hope to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher."

"That's in Jerusalem, love," the second laughed.

"I know."

"Hey! Don't be taking that tone with me, girl!" the man reacted by reaching out to grab her. Sandy's batted his hand away by reflex. The other grabbed her upper arm in retaliation.

"Fiesty, this one. I kind of like them that way."

"Kindly release me, Gentlemen… I've done nothing wrong."

"Oh pardon us, _princess_." One sneered. "And what will your royal highness do if we don't let you go?"

Sandy pulled at her arm, but the one who was holding her had a solid grip, she couldn't even slip her arm out of the sleeve to escape him that way.

"You should concern yourselves with what _I_ will do."

Sandy froze; she recognized Altair's voice behind her. She cursed silently, this was no the way she wanted things to go. She had convinced him to come here to avoid attention, and there she drew it herself. There had to be a way to get out of this situation without causing additional ruckus.

"Well lookie what we have here. The princess has a guardian." The guard holding her sneered.

"He's a Saracen."

"You know, I think they missed him at the executions," The other replied, laughing.

Sandy practically felt the temperature behind her plunge to below freezing; she knew that tweedledee and tweedledum had just said the absolutely wrong thing. She was bothered herself that these two idiots would joke about the senseless slaughter of nearly three thousand people, but her worst probably didn't even match the start of what Altair could do them.

"You two are really fucked up," she clapped free her hand on the one holding her upper arm, wrapped her fingers around the man's thumb and jerked it up until the bones gave a crack. The man howled in pain and at that moment she felt the air whip around her as Altair attacked. The guard with the now-broken thumb was dead a split second later by Altair's hidden blade.

"Assassin!" the other shouted.

Sandy cursed and turned around. "Altair, company." She warned. The scream had alerted the other patrolling knights; six of them were now racing up the steps toward them. She heard a groan behind her and knew that Altair had just killed the other one.

"Come!" he called.

Sandy turned around and ran after him as he ducked around the corner of the cathedral and ran for the opposite edge of the square. Sandy could only blame herself for this latest disaster. The morons had been right, she looked weird, and if she had been dressed more like everyone else they would not have taken that second look. She really needed to get some more local clothing, before she did something to get Altair into very hot water.

Altair led them to a very narrow side street behind the cathedral that wove its way toward the port. There were no people on it, and they could safely duck into some convenient alley and lose their pursuers. They stopped and Sandy bent over, putting her hands on her knees as she tried to swallow as much air as possible. "I'm sorry," she managed to choke out between pants.

"What happened?" Altair asked.

Sandy looked up and straightened, "Nothing. I would never start a fight-"

"I know that."

Sandy opened her mouth to say something but then closed it, what could she say at that moment? Then she looked down at her feet, "Now we can't go back there. We have nothing." She murmured.

Altair shifted his weight, "It will not be a problem."

"What if you are compromised, what if they can tell by the weapon hole that it's a hidden blade, not a knife, and- and-" she cut herself off when she realized what she was saying. She was thinking too CSI and this was the twelfth century. A time when people thought the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. This was a time when the courts tortured a confession out of the accused instead of conducting an investigation. No one would bother to look at the wound for the weapon that made it. There was a whole other problem, those guards that had been chasing after them. If they got a good look at Altair and had more memory than a goldfish, his clothing would be a giveaway. She looked up at Altair and wondered, how would a twelfth century person describe him?

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"No. I was thinking too technically, too… you know, too scientifically. Those guys back there, even if they got a good look at you it still won't do them much good. They can't exactly do a sketch and plaster it on every pillar and post. Still, while all that is dandy, we need more leads."

"There's always the garrison," Altair volunteered.

Sandy's eyes widened, was he insane? The garrison was the last place they should be at that moment. Though if she thought about it, the idea did have merits. "Well the rank-and-file troops might know a thing or two. Certainly if William is their leader-" she paused and raised her hand to her chin as she paced. "It will be risky, but it could lead to a big payoff. If the garrison is staffed by more mooks like the two back there, they're bound to speak ill of their master. Sometimes rumor is as good as fact, it tells you what people are willing to believe about a person."

"Are you coming or are you going to stand there contemplating it all day?" Altair asked.

Sandy looked up and discovered that he was already some meters away, clearly taking his own initiative. She shook her head and followed him, raising her hood as she went. Were she at all supposititious, she would have taken today's event as some sort of ill omen.

Altair wound a way through a number of side streets in the general direction of the citadel. The city's barracks were nearby, housing the rank-and-file troops of the city's garrison. There were some men outside its doors making quite a ruckus on the street by using it as a practice field for sparring. Their swords clanged and clashed, sending an occasional spark in the air. There were bystanders lingering about, watching the training as if it was a free show. The men of the garrison were clad to their fullest, as if expecting a full scale invasion at any second. Sandy decided that earlier she had the unfortunate luck to run into the only two lazy morons of the bunch. The rest seemed to be hard working, driven, almost dedicated to their fighting. There was just one problem with the picture, it all seemed somehow off.

"Try not to mouth off to them again," Altair said lowly, meaning only for her to hear.

"I'll pretend to be mute," Sandy replied.

He grinned and the two of them continued to draw near the garrison. The sparring groups of knights were apparently too busy to notice new arrivals so the two of them had no trouble finding a good vantage point.

There was little loose talk, and less of it that was audible over the clanging of swords. About five minutes later another group of men emerged from a side street, heading for the garrison. Altair grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into the shadows. "Those are the same ones from the church." He explained.

"Interesting," Sandy remarked.

The six men passed close by, talking among themselves in angry, annoyed tones.

"The whole Garrison will know soon," Sandy stated blandly, "and we still have nothing." She couldn't help but blame herself for that latter one. If she had just turned around and ran back to Altair things would have gone differently. Pride and self-sufficiency be damned in such a case.

A group of more men emerged from the same street, carrying the two fallen guards on makeshift stretchers. As the group came into view many of the sparring matches stopped and a din of conversation soon rose. She began to hear bits and pieces of various conversations. Looking at Altair she realized that he was listening as well, and she decided not to disturb his concentration.

"… we will be paying for this one. Just wait until William finds out, and then he's meeting with the king today- I think getting sleep _now_ is a good idea." One man spoke.

His comrade in arms was slouching and grimacing already. "We're going to be doing extra drills. Meeting with the king already puts him in a foul mood, but this-" he trailed off.

"We'll be lucky if he doesn't cut our rations too. I don't understand why he makes us work so much, we are not marching on Jaffa, are we?"

"He seems convinced that the Saracens will invade the city as soon as his majesty leaves the gates. He sees Saracens hidden in every dry shrub and behind every rock."

The first man laughed, "He should stop drinking with Meister Sibrand. I hear _he's_ convinced that the same assassin who killed Garnier will soon come after him."

Sandy glanced at Altair again, he probably had heard as much, if not more than she did. She would have to ask him later if he knew this Sibrand. If the man had a reason to fear for his life from an assassin and he associated with William as far as to be drinking buddies, then it was reasonable to assume that he was worth looking into. He had to be someone sufficiently powerful at that, someone in some sort of position. The conversation of the two men also yielded knowledge that William tended to drive his men like a slaver as well as take his frustration out on them. It was enough to have a hint at the psych profile. The man was clearly under a lot of stress that he couldn't deal with, stress that was coming from the highest echelons. Perhaps in a way this was a good thing for Altair, if William was stressed out by his work then perhaps when it came down to it Altair would have an easier time simply beating him down. A man so stressed out couldn't possibly think level when the fight adrenaline hit the system.

"We will leave now," Altair announced. Sandy turned and followed him deeper into the alley.

"Well that wasn't a total waste. William is under a lot of stress, he won't be thinking straight. What interests me more is this Sibrand fellow, who is he?"

"Why the interest?" Altair wondered.

"He's drinking buddies with William, and given how he treats his men- I'd bet he doesn't drink with just _anyone_. This Sibrand also fears your wrath; he probably has a reason to fear you."

"He's the Grand Master of the new Teutonic order," Altair replied.

"Well then he could very well prove connected. Robert had connections with Garnier, why not Sibrand? It's a viable lead."

Altair hummed softly, "don't get sidetracked," he warned.

"Where to now?"

"There is only the citadel left," Altair stated.

Sandy sighed, this would be the most dangerous place of all, but right now they had nothing else to go on. They needed more information, and it looked like desperate times called for desperate measures.

**

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The Tidbits Corner:**

The Battle at the Horns of Hattin: This was a small village 5 miles (8km) east of the Sea of Galilee set on the northern slopes of two hills known as the Horns of Hattin. The battle mentioned happened in 1187, there Saladin's army of 30k solidly routed the army of Guy Lusignan standing at 20k. It was a giant tactical bungle on the part of the then-king of Jerusalem, leading to his capture, and the destruction of the Crusader defence force in the Levant. Some say as many at 17k of his army died, certainly a number were simply executed afterward. This event opened the door for Saladin to retake Jerusalem from the Christians, and would trigger the third Crusade.

**Director's Notes:**

Yikes, this chapter took simply too long. Part research requirements, part writer's block, and part overwhelmingly hot weather that makes me too tired to think. Also part busy with cleaning and the paperwork for this year's university term. It has been a very busy month. This chapter is the beginning of r a new arc, and those chapters are always the hardest to write too. They have to set the foundation for the whole arc to come. Expect plot twists.

I did a little bit of research on the causes of the third crusade so as to better represent the political situation at that time. The game kind of glazed over it, but I decided that if I wanted to get the climate even close to right, I needed to look into it. Took a while because the whole thing was very much a mess, but I have better grasp of it now. I decided to place some research notes in the tidbits corner because putting them in the chapter would have been unnatural info-dumping. There's so much more to be said about the situation there, but I decided to stick to the most important. All the various little bits would make the tidbit notes longer than the chapter. I am willing to familiarize people via PM or email though.


	33. Opening Gambits, Part II

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

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Chapter XXXIII:**__ Opening Gambits, Part II_

As they walked the streets of Akka Sandy kept an eye and ear open for any sign of any pursuit or trouble. Perhaps she was high strung, but she couldn't help but feel like there was danger around every street corner and on every rooftop. The streets leading to the fortress were full of people and the closer they drew to it, the more armed men there were.

As they entered the market square in front of the citadel it was hard to miss the surreal scene. There was a crowd of people gathered, all talking amongst each other excitedly as they packed and pushed as close as they could to the citadel's main gate. Some armed men were at the front of the mob, arms spread, keeping the rowdy crowd at a safe distance. Flanking the gates were some men carrying the lion-spangled banners of Richard. To Sandy it looked like some twelfth century version of a crowd of paparazzi and reporters swarming the doors of a hotel, waiting for some celebrity to emerge from the revolving doors.

"Did all these people come to see a glimpse of the king or something?" she asked, turning to Altair. Even standing right next to him she almost had to shout to be heard.

"Yes," he replied calmly.

"We're unlikely to get anything from this crowd." She felt like she was overstating the obvious, but she had to say it. Maybe Altair could hear something in this mob, but to her it was all white noise. Very noisy white noise. "Should we move closer?" she wondered.

"Come," Altair took her by the elbow and guided her around the crowd closer toward the wall and gate of the fortress. Sandy pulled her hood further down her forehead, concealing her face as much as she could. She now understood why Altair had a decorative point on his and practically lived in it, the even rim of hers slid back at times. She wondered if she could get hers modified in the same way.

A number of men emerged from the gates, each armed and armored. One raised a trumpet-like instrument and blew it. The crowd quieted down instantly but the tension in the air seemed to rise in proportion. Sandy heard the sound of multiple sets of hooves coming from inside. The crusaders in the crowd became nervous instantly, Sandy noticed that they scanned the crowds for anything out of the ordinary. Some were even adjusting their helmets and weapons, as if expecting an attack.

It was then that a large procession of men on horseback emerged from the gate. Led by King Richard himself, clad in exquisitely shined chainmail and red surcoat embroidered with lions done in what appeared to be real gold thread, if the faint glimmer was an indication. He was mounted on a white beast of a horse that put Rayo's to shame in sheer size, though its size was probably magnified by the horse armor underneath the elegantly draped red cloth covering it. The king was talking to someone who walked on foot at his right. She couldn't see this man at all due to the king's horse and the red drapery over it.

Sandy's eyes then landed on the second rider in the formation she idly wondered how she missed him at first. Mounted on a horse just as white and not much smaller than the king's, draped in white with red crosses, was Robert de Sable. He too wore nearly full armor, though lacking the great helmet that Sandy had seen his steward carry for him. Behind the leading group came a small group of seven templars, six of them were big men that wore their great helmets and carried the order's banners aloft. The steward was seventh and last among them. Her horse wasn't armored or dressed for parade, and compared to the rest of the Templars she looked positively out of place. Still the very fact that she was included in the procession meant that Robert held her in high regard. Sandy would file away that observation as highly curious and just as indicative. Ten of Richard's knights brought up the rear, all clad in red and carrying the king's banners. The whole thing looked like a highly choreographed presidential procession, except the secret service was not wearing black and did not look all that secretive about their ability to kill. There was nothing secretive about the swords carried by knights, and at least two of Richard's men also had deadly-looking maces.

Sandy contemplated suggesting to Altair that they melt further back into the crowd. They couldn't risk Robert spotting them. As tall as he was on his own, the added factor of the gigantic horse would allow him to scan the crowd at will. She leaned in and open her mouth to voice her concern when the king's horse stopped, causing the whole procession to jar to a halt.

"I have made my decision William; I can only spare half the men you demand. Even that is generous and I only leave them because the Knights Hospitaller are more needed on the battlefield," the king stated coolly, completely uncaring for the fact that the whole thing was overheard by everyone in the crowd.

"My liege, please reconsider, such a number leaves Acre undermanned. Saladin is a crafty enemy; he may use this opportunity to attempt to retake the city."

"Do not question me, William," Richard snapped back. "Do not pretend you know the enemy better than everyone else. You have forsaken the field of battle to play in politics; you have no right to dictate tactics to me." As he spoke, the king circled William, allowing Sandy to see the man in question for the first time. He was dwarfed by the king and his monstrous horse, but Sandy figured it was entirely the whole purpose of the highly humiliating display. William was clad in the lion-spangled livery of Richard's army, but his armor was decidedly of better quality than the average grunt. His squires or pages had done a good job of shining the chainmail, as it gleamed in the sunlight. He seemed to present the air of a man who had ambitions and was going places.

"I do what is necessary to defend this city and the people in it, my liege," William argued.

Sandy decided that this William must be the man that Altair had been sent to kill. The name was dirt common, but this one seemed to be pretty high ranked to be able to speak to a king in that manner. She could see William's irritation plain as daylight in the set of his posture. He was desperately trying not to show it on his face or act out on it while talking to the stubborn monarch. Personally, Sandy thought that William had a point, strictly on tactical basis, Salah ad-Din had many more men at his disposal than the crusaders and there was a danger of a rear attack, though Sandy also knew that there likely wouldn't be one. The historical documentaries on the Third Crusade never mentioned a rear attack like the one William feared. Richard's was taking a gamble, but given what she knew would happen, the gamble would pay off. She understood his willingness to take it. He couldn't give up too many men in the upcoming battle at Arsuf against the majority of said enemy army. His position would be worse in open combat.

The sound of faintly ringing chainmail instinctively caused Sandy to turn her head toward it. She instantly wished that she hadn't because at that moment she saw something that made her blood run liquid-nitrogen cold in her veins. Robert de Sable was staring straight at her, the horse under him had shifted its weight; it was the chainmail under its cloth covering that had produced the ringing sound. She realized that there was a possibility that he had caused his horse to shift purposefully; gambling that the sound its chainmail would make her look.

She bowed her head to conceal more of her face in her hood and turned away. Maybe his attention had just been drawn to the only two specs of white in the crowd. Given that one of his enemies wore white it made sense why he would pay them attention. It did not have to mean that he recognized them. The sound of hooves and more chainmail ringing told her that he was moving. For a brief instant she thought that he was about to send the Templars with him after them. There was no way in hell that Altair and her could outrun horses. Then the movement stilled.

"My Lord, we must continue to the camp."

"Yes. We must. William I leave the city to you. As soon as the Knights Hospitaller finally choose their new Grand Master, I expect him to catch up to me with the contingent I was promised. You will relay my word to them."

"Yes, my liege," William replied.

The men barring the crowd away from the procession harried the people out of the king's way as Richard turned his horse and stirred it into a walk. Robert followed, and just like that the whole convoy was moving as a single body, leaving William behind at the gates. Sandy saw him watching the procession vanish. Sandy felt the weight settle on her shoulders. "Altair, I bet you saw but… I think Robert spotted us."

"There is little he can do for now, the king is taking nearly all the Knights Templar in the city with him on the march to Jaffa."

"Still, this does not settle well with me," Sandy argued.

William was barking orders to the men who had been controlling the thinning crowd. All the anger that he couldn't take out on the king he was now venting freely on his underlings. Suddenly the behavior of the two idiots at the Cathedral made sense. They had likewise decided to take out their frustrations by picking a fight with someone who they thought could not harm them in return. It was like vicious chain that almost fit the old analogy, the boss fires the husband, he comes home and takes it out on the wife, she grounds the son, and the son kicks the dogs. Sandy rather disliked being one of the dogs in the analogy, too bad that there would not be the ironic end of the dogs biting the boss, or rather mauling him to death. Sandy glanced at Altair and couldn't help but grin at her own private joke.

"Man, these guys have it rough. Extra drills all day. Has no one told William that it's pointless to run them ragged like that? The way I see it, if Akka is ever really invaded they will be too tired to put up a fight."

Altair did not reply, Sandy wondered if he ever heard her speak at that moment. She followed his line of sight and noticed that he was staring into the gates of the citadel where William had vanished. She could see a collection of small buildings inside, dark narrow streets, and more armed man than she was comfortable being this close to. "I hope you're not thinking of going to scope the lay of the fortress," she voiced.

"I have to, it is the one place in the city that remains unfamiliar to me," Altair replied.

"Yes, I see your point, to plan a successful heist one must know the entry and exit ways- but- I have a bad feeling about this," Sandy stated. Somehow uttering those famous last words seemed appropriate.

She had the mother of all bad feelings, every cell in her body had been clamoring a red alert ever since she had met Robert de Sable's icy blue gaze. As much as she wanted to deny it, to foolishly hope that he had not recognized them, she knew it couldn't be. He did recognize them, he knew they were in Akka, and odds were that he put together the dots and knew who Altair was going after. Tomorrow would be time enough for him to warn William, send some page with some letter, or even his steward. Being forced to ride with Richard would not stop a man with so many resources. There would be more men, more danger; Altair's job was complicated, possibly compromised. The only thing stopping Robert from combing the city block by block was the fact that he probably had to keep the whole thing quiet and under Richard's radar.

Worst part was that Altair would not listen to her even if she confessed her suspicions to him. She didn't blame him, after all her instinct was hardly a logical thing to go by. Still, this calm panic was familiar, too familiar even; she had felt the same thing the last time they had been in Akka, after she had woken up from that dream about the eagle and the snake. That had ended with a close shave with Templars; this time probably wouldn't be different. Were she in Altair's shoes, she would have called for backup about now. Altair would not do that either, not even if she got down on her knees and begged him not to take the risk. Still, the idea of begging was moot. Even if he would have listened to that, Sandy would never stop so low as to get down on her knees and beg. There was a limit to the amount of chauvinism she was willing to swallow.

That left only one, very dangerous option. She had to become his backup, but what could she do? She couldn't actually follow him where he could see her, like a partner. He would never agree or tolerate that. That meant she had to become like a ninja and avoid getting into shit herself. Her track record with those missions was atrocious; staying out of trouble was difficult if not impossible, she would be more of a liability that help. So that discounted any overt form of help, what else was there? Her hands were tied behind her back and she hated it. She hated the helplessness she felt at that moment, watching someone she cared for go and do something so reckless. Somehow she began to sympathize with the families of soldiers who went off to some war.

Shaking her head she realized that she still had intelligence work, she had to help him devise a method that would be least expected by the enemy. Would he listen to those suggestions? She honestly didn't know, but she knew that she had to try. It was then she realized that she had been lost in her thoughts again. She had been following Altair on auto-pilot, without really paying attention to where they were going. She frowned deeply, some help she was.

The fortress seemed to be under a blanket of smog, the air inside smelled unpleasantly like sewage and burned wood. The pathways were very narrow and claustrophobic. Fighting on these streets would not be easy or recommended. William's men were following them whenever they went, but they didn't dare move. Sandy thought that they were doing good impressions of the guards at Buckingham palace, just short red dress uniforms and big black hats. They had that stoic, stiff carriage, and looked like they weren't breathing. Yet their eyes tracked anything that moved, looking for threats.

She caught up to Altair and tapped his arm, "I think we're overstaying our welcome," she whispered.

Altair stopped suddenly and turned, "That is fine. I have what I need."

"Good, fill me in later… I want to get out of here. Now." She didn't bother hiding the fact that she was on edge and uncomfortable being here. The atmosphere in the citadel was very tense and unfriendly.

"You seemed fine just a moment ago," he remarked.

"Yes well, a moment ago I was off in one of my usual bouts of absent-mindedness," She replied.

"I was wondering why it was quiet," he remarked.

"Jerk," Sandy fumed. Altair grinned and suddenly she realized what he was doing again. He was once again trying to piss her off so that she would too busy fuming over his insensitivity to mind anything else. She dropped her arms and sighed, "Thanks, I needed that."

He led the way back towards the gates of the citadel and past them. The market square was still bustling like the earlier scene did not happen. The further they got from the gates, the more Sandy could relax, but still not as much as she was before this whole nightmare. "What did you get in there?" she asked.

"The citadel's keep is accessible via the rooftops," he stated calmly.

"That's good, you can get in undetected. How do you plan to get out?"

"Same way," he replied.

Sandy knew that in an ideal world he could just about pull something as daring as that off. The second he struck William down the alarm would go out, for a time all the soldiers in the citadel would be uncertain as to what was going on, if he moved quickly he could escape the same way he got in before they got organized. However this was not an ideal world, the whole plan relied on too much good luck, and Lady Luck's grace was something she learned not to rely extensively on, she tended to PMS at the worst times.

"You never lose concentration unless something you consider important is on your mind," Altair observed.

"Heh," Sandy smirked, but the expression was no at full of amusement as it normally was. "It's Robert."

"That again," Altair said in an almost derisive tone.

"Call me crazy and don't believe me, but I have always had this gut feeling when it comes to danger. One sighting of him and it tends to start clamoring like the city's alarm bells."

"You do not need good intuition to know that he is a dangerous adversary to cross."

"Maybe, but I do need a good solid gut feeling to know that he also probably knows who you're after and he'll do something about it. You got to remember that dear Will works for the man. In fact, I'm pretty sure Robert interrupted Richard's reaming of William half because he spotted us and half because Will looked like he was a hairs-breadth away from snapping. He can't have his operative fall out of Richard's favor, can he? He certainly can't have you killing him."

"You're over-thinking things again,"

"Perhaps, and perhaps I'm bang on. Were I in Robert's position I would not be wasting this chance. You have already cost him too much and now he has an opportunity for revenge. The risk is nominal; Richard is no longer in the city to know what goes on. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Robert decided to act in person, just to make sure nothing goes wrong. He has the resources of the whole Knights Templar at his disposal. He can ride with Richard until they camp for the night, then change beasts and be back here by morning."

"Richard would notice the absence."

"Would he? I'm pretty sure he could be made to believe that the Grand Master is even then busy with internal affairs. Apparently said affairs tend to back up pretty badly if the Hospitallers are any indication. The death of Garnier made them nigh impotent."

"You believe you understand him without once exchanging words?"

"I know his type. He plays a careful game of chess with actual people as pawns. The fact that he has all these hidden players everywhere shows he is capable of extensive pre-planning and manipulation. But he's not ignoble. Remember that time we met on the street? A bastard of the highest caliber would have set his goons on us then and there, and yet _he_ stopped to chat. In fact, as I recall he was even civil to you- well as civil as enemies can get. He stopped his men from drawing their swords when they got jumpy. No, Altair. I am convinced that he's a magnificent bastard, the sort that likes to win while maintaining an immaculate reputation."

"Even assuming you are right, I still cannot delay this task."

"No, but you can go in expecting a nasty surprise."

Altair continued to walk in silence, she could see that he was mulling on the things she had said. Probably trying to decide just what was the likelihood of her being right. She knew that he probably didn't see the logic as she did, in this time there was a very limited understanding of what made any person act as they did. There was no point in explaining that her understanding of Robert's motives came from analyzing his actions, assuming it was a pattern of behavior, and profiling accordingly. She didn't pretend to be an expert profiler, but she knew what she saw. Robert de Sable was perhaps a little too chivalrous for his own good; he adhered to whatever rules of engagement there were in the twelfth century. It probably earned him the respect and allegiances he wanted, but it also made him unlikely to play overtly dirty in the presence of witnesses. Such a weakness could be exploited in a pinch, her rules of engagement more than allowed her to play dirty if it meant keeping herself safe. In a street fight there were no rules, no 'playing fair', it was one of the first things Wolf had drilled into her head.

"Where are we going now?" She asked.

"Seeing as I have what I need…" he trailed off.

Sandy had to stop herself from groaning, this was the beginning of the part she loather. An evening in the bureau of Akka was hardly as relaxing or entertaining as it was in Damascus or Jerusalem. She didn't have pottery to help with, even if it was just by handing tools, and she didn't have Malik for his conversations. He always seemed incredulous that she hadn't been driven insane by Altair's 'insufferable' arrogance yet. She certainly found his arguments with Altair amusing. They reminded her of a pair of brothers who made a show of not getting along. The thought brought a weak little smile to her lips. She didn't want to tell Malik that she didn't think Altair was insufferable for bragging per se, he could certainly put up, so he was stating fact. The annoying part was the fact that he seemed to feel the need to do so too often. Then again, great men all tended to have that one flaw besmirching their natures.

"You really think Robert will act?" Altair asked after a prolonged silence.

"He'd be a fool not to, and he hardly seems to be a fool."

"Assuming you are right for a moment, what would you do in this situation?"

"Are we talking hypothetically?"

Altair nodded.

Sandy hummed, folding her arms as she thought. "Hypothetically… I'd ask the rafiq to station a man at a number of important locations, all the gates, but also at the gates of the citadel. I'd order them to report back if they see Robert return during the night. Such an advance warning would allow us to be certain whether or not the mission was compromised. Of course the rafiq is unlikely to listen to me."

"You have stood up to him before," Altair argued.

"I know a Sisyphean task when I see one, Altair. I'm never getting his respect." She tried to sound more flippant than frustrated, but she knew that he could probably tell the difference.

"Then I will tell the rafiq to station those men," Altair stated.

Sandy looked up in surprise, was he actually buying her theory, or just appeasing her? Certainly it could be a little bit of both. The way she saw her proposal, it was a low-risk solution to their problem. If no report came by morning, it would mean that she had panicked over nothing and the mission was not compromised. If the report did come, then they would have to alter the strategy, expect complications, rob Robert and William of the crucial element of surprise, something they would undoubtedly be counting on to succeed. Without surprise there was no way that the Templars could succeed, she was confident in Altair's skill. She would bet her life savings on that skill, and she only placed bets only when she was almost sure to win.

"If you even hint that the idea was mine, he is unlikely to listen to you," Sandy remarked.

"Leave it to me," Altair stated.

Sandy slipped her hands into the opposite sleeves, somehow she felt a little bit better now. If the rafiq followed through the plan they would have a comfortable security blanket. Now she only needed to come up with a plan B in case the rafiq didn't. That too seemed like a Sisyphean task, but she knew she had to do it. For the umpteenth time that day Sandy wished she was in Jerusalem, she could have asked Malik for advice. He had a reputation among the brotherhood for being a tactician as well as an excellent cartographer; right now she would have loved to have his advice.

The rest of the walk to back to the bureau was done in silence. Sandy still mulling on her plan B, and Altair was himself. Sandy snapped out of her thoughts only long enough to make the short roof-hop leg of the trip to the yard entrance of the bureau without falling off and breaking something. As soon as she was in the shadowed yard she was off in her thoughts while Altair made his report.

Dinner proved to be a pain that night; the rafiq seemed to glare at her sporadically, as if he knew that something was up but had no proof. Sandy wondered if there was something written across her forehead that gave her away. She did not even bother to argue when Altair committed more grand theft cheese, stealing the last piece that she had been eyeing. She was all too glad to turn in for the night and get some sleep, tomorrow was going to be a nerve-wracking day.

She woke in the morning to the sound of a number of voices. One look to her side told her that Altair was gone and she instantly knew what going on. Scrambling to her feet and without bothering with shoes she pressed her back to the house wall and edged her way along it to the doorway. Stopping where she could not see the front counter she strained to hear what was going on inside. There were six separate voices, and it seemed like they were the men that the rafiq ended up dispatching to the gates. Each in turn gave a rather short and uniform report. They had remained on watch all night and hadn't seen a single Templar enter the gates, let alone the Grand Master's return.

Sandy edged away from the door and plopped back unto the carpet, crossing her arms and legs. She had been wrong, it was certainly good news, but she was not going to be throwing any celebrations until Altair was back and the gruesome task was done. There were still other ways in which the whole thing could end up going wrong.

"Since you're so calm, I assume you have heard the reports." Altair stated as he appeared from inside the bureau, checking the straps on his hidden blade.

"I blame your bad influence for my eavesdropping habit." She stated, getting back to her feet. Before he could leave bureau she wrapped her arms around his midsection. "Be careful, okay?" she asked. "The net may not have picked up anything suspicious but- I still have a bad feeling."

"I'll be back soon," he replied.

Sandy nodded her head and disentangled herself, moving back to the sea of pillows to begin her uneasy vigil. She watched as he hefted himself up to the roof and sighed when vanished. Her mind wanted to wonder to all the various ways in which the situation could still go wrong, she had to consciously restrain those thoughts. Superstitions aside, thinking about bad things invariably increased her anxiety levels; there was no point in her working herself up over nothing like that.

* * *

Altair made his way to the fortress via the rooftops, taking the quickest, most direct route. Along the way he took note of the archer positions while avoiding their lines of sight. After the third he realized that there were more of them on patrol than he had ever seen before. It was a curious phenomenon, but Altair suspected it had little to do with him, and more to do with William deciding to punish his underlings after yesterday's fiasco. The archers still seemed too uncoordinated to hint at anything amiss. He stopped on the roof of a small house overlooking the fortress market square, scanning the crowd for any sign of something amiss. Cassandra's warning was still fresh on his mind, and some part of him made him stop and examine the situation more closely than normally. Damascus had proven to him that whatever reasoning method she used, it could yield uncanny results. Had he listened to her then, she could have very well prevented the senseless deaths at the party.

The market square was packed with shoppers, but it was curiously quieter than normal. The vendors were not as boisterous with their soliciting calls as they normally would have been. Some of them seemed content with only talking to whatever shoppers stopped at their stalls. The ones who did call out were the ones furthest away from the gates of the fort. Looking at the tall looming stone wall Altair realized with a start that the metal gates were down. Flanking them on both sides were armed guards from Richard's army, and ten more archers were on the walls. The sight was too curious; the gate was only closed when the city expected a full-scale invasion, when the security around the fort's keep was at its tightest.

It was then that Altair understood the reason behind the nervousness of the market. The citizens knew the signs of heightened security, they suspected something was amiss. Was William really planning to keep the city in a state of full preparedness? Whatever his goal was, this posed a challenge, with the fortress sealed off he had no ready access inside. He scanned the wall, noting some repair scaffolding set against the fortress' wall. It would have to be his access point, but first he would first have to cross the market square and dodge the soldiers. It seemed like the mission was going to be more complicated than he had expected it to be.

Altair moved towards the side of the building facing an alley. Just as he was about to jump down he spotted a group of Richard's men across the market square. Amidst the six fully armed and armored knights was William himself. Altair would have laughed if the matter was in any way funny. He watched as the group walked down one of the streets leading towards the city's port. Altair vaulted over the alley to the building across and followed the group on the rooftops. Now he just needed William stepping away from the group for the briefest second, one good strike would be all takes.

Altair crept across a rooftop, watching his query closely, and it wasn't long before he began to see a pattern in his course. William took the wide open streets, steering through the crowds, though mostly the presence of armed men caused the crowds to part for him, like the waves at the prow of a ship. He seemed to be patrolling, observing the other soldiers at duty. The wider streets also meant that there were no overhangs or balconies from which Altair could launch a strike. The sheer number of soldiers out on the streets also precluded attack for the simple reason that if he caused a ruckus, he'd quickly be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Altair was not going to turn this into a suicide mission.

As the knights made a turn unto another main street Altair found himself forced to descend to street level as there was no way across the street via the rooftops. By the time he reached the turn, William had vanished, though the crowds were still parted, like the wake of the ship. He walked through this trail, noting where the wake stopped. There he found himself at a four way intersection, on either side was an alley. William had to have made a turn unto a side street and Altair was losing valuable time trying to figure out which way the man went.

Looking left he noticed that the alley there was dark, spanned by clothing lines that did not look disturbed. It also led away from the port. To his right was a slightly wider alley that faced in the general direction of the port, it could form a sort of shortcut he reckoned. Perhaps William had meant to avoid the large crowds on the main streets. Altair ducked into the alley and followed. The alley here took a right turn and then a left around a building. Beyond he could see a small yard with a well at its center. Altair's senses came to life as he realized this was no shortcut; there was a dead end ahead. If William had went there, did he know he was being followed? Had he chosen to fight? If William decided to lay an ambush, he should have chosen a better place, somewhere less obvious. Even if he did not expect an ambush before, this would have given it away. Altair advanced; he would show William that he was not the tactician he fancied himself being.

* * *

Sandy lay among the pillows, nervously playing with the hem of her cloak, trying to calm her jitters when she heard a commotion from inside the bureau. Suddenly the rafiq was chastising someone. She frowned and sat up, and then rolling to her hands she crawled closer towards the door. The rafiq was talking to a man who had just arrived; the man was barely able to speak at all because he was so out of breath.

"… I watched the fort's gate all night as ordered" the man said in a rush. "And I was returning to the bureau, thinking it all clear when I saw them!"

Sandy's stomach suddenly clenched as she frowned. There could be only one reason for the informant to be in the state he was.

"The Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and three others… they were there at the fort! Master Altair was right to suspect something amiss."

Sandy's fist clenched on a pillow as her eyes widened. She instantly knew why the gate watchmen hadn't seen Robert and this man had. The sneaky Templar had never left the city; somehow he managed to shirk his duties of marching with Richard. "Altair" she breathed. She should have expected it, but there was no point in worrying about that now. Sandy knew instantly Altair was in danger, if he made it into the fort he would have to face more than just William and his men. She grabbed her cloak and shot to her feet, slipping it on, and raising her hood.

Glancing at the bureau's door she grimaced, there was no time arguing with the rafiq over the fact that Altair had to be warned. It would invariably come to light that the suspicions had been hers, not Altair's. She didn't want the rafiq to know that she could foresee Robert's actions with any accuracy; he would think she was a double agent or something. He would ignore the fact that she had been wrong in part, that she had not foreseen the possibility of Robert never leaving the city in the first place. The oversight could spell a disaster. She boosted herself to the rooftop and urgently scanned the rooftops in the direction of the fortress. She hoped with all her heart that she was not late, that she could catch up to the assassin. Consequences be damned, he was not walking blindly into a trap with her on the watch.

Sandy knew the rooftops were the fastest way to the fort, but also the more dangerous. She could see the multitude of archers out and about, it worried her a little. Not wanting to risk an altercation with them, she opted to take the streets. There she was forced to steer in the general direction of the fort by keeping the keep tower in front of her at all times. The crowds were thick as molasses, and she knew that time was running out, she took any chance she had to get ahead.

* * *

Altair was fully prepared for a two-pronged rush when he entered that yard, William would think himself clever to use the opportunity. As he had expected, the yard was small, enclosed like a cage, almost perfect for an ambush. The well at the center was covered, and a there was a second exit in the form of a very narrow laneway between two buildings, probably leading to another side street or yard at the far side. William was standing right beside that exit, flanked on either side by his knights.

"We were expecting you, Assassin," the regent stated.

"Your ambush did not catch me by surprise," Altair argued.

"Oh? Well that was to be expected," William argued.

Altair did not dignify William's overconfidence with a reply. He advanced, deciding that he would strike William down and be done with this mission. However, as he drew closer, his ears picked up the faint ringing of chainmail. The sound came from the little laneway and Altair stopped, watching both William and the laneway.

"As I was saying, assassin. It is not my ambush you just stepped into," William stated, sounding more and more amused by the second.

The faithful steward of Robert de Sable emerged from the laneway, still carrying the master's great helmet. The Grand Master himself was not far behind.

* * *

As Sandy drew ever closer to the fortress she began to notice an increasing presence of soldiers. Some part of her psyche told her to turn around; she was too conspicuous, if she got in trouble now she would have a hard time getting out of it. Worst case scenario she would do something that would make Altair's job even more difficult. A tiny part of her subconscious, the demon of insecurity, insisted that there was nothing she could do to help Altair. That he was already in the fortress, somewhere where she knew not to follow.

With each step she took she mentally kicked that demon of insecurity, she had to try, Altair was in danger and she'd never live with herself if she didn't at least try to help him. She could deal with the rafiq and the whole assassin order afterwards. She would even welcome Altair's anger, just as long as he was safe and sound. She stopped dead when she spotted one of Richard's men standing at the mouth of an alley. His hand resting on the pommel of his sword, feet shoulder-wide, it was practically the universal posture of someone standing on guard.

Her eyes narrowed, what was that man guarding? Did she have time to investigate? Just then she saw a Templar emerge from the alley across the street, he approached the red-clad soldier and the two seemed to exchange some words. That alone set off all the alert bells in Sandy's head; it was so strange an event. Apparently she wasn't the only one to think so, as she noted there were other people who stopped to watch, though many of them tried to be discrete about it. Then the Templar moved past the other soldier and Sandy blanched when she saw the crossbow he was carrying, suddenly she knew what was going on. "Altair…" she ducked into another alley.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

I don't think there is anything

**Director's Notes:**

Another chapter that took an unbelievably long time to write. I do apologize for my shot plans of getting more done this summer. It was an uphill battle against a lack of inspiration. I was simply not getting the creative energies I needed to write, those energies that typically come out of me being just a little bit stressed, or systematically in traffic.

This chapter was also plagued with storyboard issues. There is a scene planned for the next chapter -that has been storyboarded at this point- which had stalled this chapter for the longest time time. I do take pride in writing unique action scenes that justify the characters, the setting, and provide some element of novelty that departs from the game script. This arc has really departed from the game script, and because of that I had to really sit down and try to polish out a good scene without being guided by something.

I also have to polish out the background details that are not always apparent. I really think about the reasons why this character does this or that, and why my action sequence will work as it does. I sit down and really choreograph everything 'frame by frame' so to say. I also have to fight that little voice in the back of my head that most writers fall prey too, the Mary Sue demon. So I hope you liked this chapter.


	34. Opening Gambits, Part III

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!

_**

* * *

Chapter XXXIV:**__ Opening Gambits, Part III_

She moved with a careful consideration, making sure her footsteps did not echo. Peering around the first corner into the laneway behind the street-front building she noted the Templar had paused in the middle of it, staring into the laneway between two inner buildings. His helmet destroyed his peripheral vision and shot his hearing, Sandy knew her advantage. At the moment he seemed to be struggling with the crossbow in his hands, the mechanism for winding back the string seemed to have become stuck. Suddenly Sandy heard the sound of metal clashing coming from the laneway the templar was staring into. She recognized the sound of swords meeting in the heat of combat, but this Templar had to be removed first. He posed more danger to Altair than both Robert and William put together, if indeed that was whom Altair was fighting. Altair was skilled enough to avoid sword-wielding foes, but a crossbow was an unfair rule-breaker.

She crept around the corner and withdrew her left knife, holding the blade as she released the locking mechanism, unfolding it manually as to prevent it from making a sound. The crossbow emitted a loud crunch as the jammed crank finally released. The knight continued to wind the string utterly oblivious to her approach.

Like a huntress advancing on her prey she steadied her nerves, knowing she would only have one chance to jam the knife into the space under the bottom of the great helmet and into the neck where the chainmail was thinnest. When the knight straightened and reached for a crossbow bolt from the quiver at his side, she did not stop to think and calculate; she took aim and swung. He must have seen her arm extended out whatever peripheral vision he had, because his head snapped to the side, but the knife's aim was true, it slipped right under the helmet's edge and into flesh, the speed of the strike lending the knife enough force to penetrate chainmail.

Sandy yanked the knife out and stepped back. Seemingly in slow motion the blood began gushing down the front of his chainmail, staining the white surcoat red. His hold on the loaded crossbow slackened, Sandy reached out and took it by the stock before it could drop and make a noise, or worse yet, accidently misfire. He stood for a seemingly infinite second, blue eyes staring at her from the eyeholes of the great helmet.

"I am sorry," she whispered, even without realizing why she did so.

As if accepting her words, the eyes rolled to the backs of their sockets and his body gave way, tipping foreword. The surcoat seemed to deaden the sound of the chainmail hitting the ground, but the dislodging helmet still cluttered as it slipped off his head. Sandy's melted back into the shadows of the alley, watching the yard beyond. She could see nothing and the sound of battle beyond did not seem to have died at all. She could hear two distinct sounds of swords hitting, one was a bit duller than the other, made by a heavier impact, probably a heavier sword. The situation brought an almost macabre smile to her face; if she hasn't been noticed yet, it left the field wide open for her to play whichever hand she'd want.

Looking at the knight at her feet and then at the crossbow in her hands she realized that held the single most feared weapon of the medieval era, primed and ready to fire. It was certainly a near perfect turnabout. But some nagging part of her mind told her that using it wasn't an option. On the one side it was ridiculously powerful, whomever its single shot would hit, would die, simple as that. On the other hand, she wasn't sure how to aim the thing properly. Then there was also the fact that it would be sinking to Robert de Sable's level, even if it was giving him a taste of his own medicine. Shooting anyone in the back with a crossbow was a despicable and cold-blooded way to kill, it bordered on cowardly. She couldn't do it; she couldn't bear the thought of pulling the trigger. Suddenly the crossbow felt like the vilest thing in existence. She flicked the bloody knife across the strings, and they twanged sharply as their severing released the pressure on the bow. She set the crossbow down and stared at it for a long moment until the sound of another loud clash of swords from the yard brought her back to her senses.

Sandy crouched to wipe down her knife on the dead Templar's surcoat. Killing still did not sit well with her, but this death was unavoidable. The man would not have stood down, and the crossbow he intended to use had been too dangerous. As loathsome as it was, she had no choice but killing him to neutralize the threat. Sandy folded away the knife and tucked it back into her brace. Getting to her feet she looked into the yard, her eyes met the gaze of a soldier wearing the red livery of King Richard's army. For a long moment the man stared at her as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, his jaw loosened a little. Sandy began to advance on him, shedding her cloak.

"Milord! There's another assassin!" the man called in alarm.

Sandy cursed wordlessly and lunged, the bastard had given away her natural element of surprise. She would have to manufacture an advantage. She closed the distance between them as rapidly as she could, emerging into the yard on the run. The cloak flapped in the wind, catching the air like a sail. She slung it foreword over the soldier's head, the man shouted in surprise and instantly reached up to try and pull it off, but his panicked fingers fumbled with the material. Sandy pulled his head down and simultaneously brought up her knee, slamming it as hard as she could into his groin. The man bucked and she moved out of the way, yanking the cloak off his head, turning with the momentum to slam her elbow into the side of his head, narrowly missing the temple. The impact sent him stumbling sideways and Sandy stopped, though she knew fully well that if she wanted to chain more blows on him, he was utterly at her mercy. One or two more hits and she would kill the man without a weapon.

Seemingly in slow motion the cloak settled around her as the man collapsed, groaning gutturally, clutching at his privates. Despite the chainmail he wore the concussive impact of her knee went through; he would not be getting up any time soon. It was then that she became keenly aware of the silence around her and looked up. It would have been comical had it not been utterly creepy. It almost looked like her arrival had caught everyone in a state of suspended animation. Even time seemed to stand still for a long moment.

The yard was very much the scene of a battle, there were dead bodies strewn about, some more of Richard's men, and one Templar. William was closest to her, but perhaps the most stunned of the three men. His sword was lowered and he looked very much like he had no clue what was going on. Sandy figured that was a good thing, it would make him less dangerous, and maybe some sense of chivalry would keep him from attacking a woman for a little while.

She dared to look at Robert and wished she hadn't. She could practically see the gears spinning in his head. His eyes had the same hawkish look, and were he not a cold blooded bastard the intensity in those blue depth would have been something other than scary as hell. It seemed like her arrival had disoriented his plan, he couldn't decide what he was going to do. She had to keep him in that state, if he did come up with something, it would turn ugly.

Her eyes then drifted to Altair, his sword was semi-lowered in surprise as well, the tip and the first third of the blade stained with still-moist blood. As her eyes drifted up to his face she became keenly aware of the menacing look in his eyes. The dark depths seemed to echo the worst of storms, heavily clouded over and blazing with anger.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded.

Sandy straightened her back, rising to her full, albeit diminutive height, but at that moment she still felt like a little person compared to the men. She swung her cloak over her shoulder and as the material resettled she tucked it under the collar of her tee shirt and the strap of her bra. "Coming to warn you of an ambush, but it seems you already knew." Somehow joking with him didn't seem like a good idea at the moment, but it was the only thing she could say without choking. She realized a little too late that she had stepped straight into the one thing he had forbidden her to do. She had followed him to an assassination, and what more got involved. She could have killed the Templar and vanished, let the soldier who called the alarm end up looking like a moron, but no, she had attacked him. It had been an instinct, a spontaneous reaction, something that she hadn't thought through, and wished she had.

In that silence she became aware that Robert was looking to the side. She followed his gaze and noticed the steward standing against the wall, holding the Grand Master's helmet. The two seemed to share a silent communiqué, and it instantly bothered Sandy. Her danger instinct was reacting spontaneously, and when the templar woman turned her gaze on her the danger sense began to clamor like a church Carillon.

"Who is she?" William asked.

"The Fallen," Robert replied coolly.

She glanced at the two men, wondering what it was that Robert meant. William seemed satisfied by the answer, so it had to have some sort of coded meaning. Before she could begin to figure it out, she heard chainmail moving. Sandy reacted instantly and out the corner of her eye she saw Altair move as well. The steward had set the helmet down on the ground and drew her sword. It wasn't as ornate as the one held by William or Robert, it was also a little bit shorter and probably lighter, but its edge gleamed all the same.

"I don't know why you came here," the steward spoke, "but you are in the way." Her voice was artificially deepened, a practiced way of speaking, but it did not fully hide that she was not a man, her vocal cords would not produce the right deep tone. She sounded more like an adolescent boy whose voice was still maturing.

"Aren't we high and mighty?" Sandy asked. "Then, given who you work for, I guess that's to be expected."

She saw the woman's grip on her sword tighten. She glanced at the men and noted that Altair shifted again, preparing himself to lunge at the steward. Robert seemed to take the sideways insult in a stride. It seemed to confirm that the steward was more than just loyal to the master; she was also attached to him on the personal level. Whether that feeling went both ways remained to be seen.

The steward advanced, but Sandy could tell that she was suddenly hesitant. The tip of the blade was not pointed on target, it was lowered, and she held it loosely. It was something that the arms master at Masyaf drilled into his young students; never give away uncertainty by holding the blade loosely. Sandy drew away form the men, circling about, steering toward Altair. The steward seemed to read what was on her mind, and Sandy had only a split of a second to react to the sudden attack. Altair jerked and Sandy threw up her hand, waving him off. The steward's sword flashed in an almost lame, slowed slash, one aimed to hit with the flat of the blade, not the edge. Sandy moved out of the way, letting the blade whistle by her.

Her right hand shot out, grabbing the steward's right wrist. The woman seemed surprised and Sandy decided to counter her. Circling around behind her, Sandy punched into the woman's elbow, aiming for the funny bone. The hit was just strong enough to cause the steward's fingers to twitch and the weight of the sword did the rest, the blade slipped from her grip. Sandy carried on through the combo, grabbing her right shoulder and moving her left leg around, hooking it around the steward's right, yanking backwards, sweeping the woman's main support right from under her. As she fell, Sandy maintained her grip on her right arm, bringing it around as she put her left foot on the woman's lower back, pinning her center of gravity to the ground, rendering her unable to get up.

"Altair, wouldn't you say it was time to end this?"

For the first time since she had known him, Sandy saw Altair hesitate, even as his left fist clenched.

"I got this, okay? Tall and haughty-" she jerked her head in the general direction of Robert, "won't act."

Altair still refused to move, his glare turning even more menacing. She didn't need to read him mind to know that he probably thought her sideward insults at the Templar leader were a bad idea. She realized that he was right; too bad she was too on edge to come up with anything more intelligent than that.

"What makes you positive that I will not?" Robert asked, sounding more amused than Sandy would have liked him to be. She figured he would not see her as any sort of danger to himself, but it was time to change that. She squared her shoulders and looked up, focusing her best version of Altair's 'you're dead meat' glare at the Grand Master.

"I shall be succinct, _Milord_- if you as much as move I will _kill_ your steward. After dealing with your crossbowman, I'm afraid I am not in good humor." She tried to sound as calm and saccharine as possible while drawing her knife and flicking it open. The sound of it was like a gunshot in the quiet of the yard. The steward tried to rise, but Sandy pressed her down again as she continued to glare at her employer.

William turned to Robert, waiting for his reaction. Sandy grinned triumphantly as she watched the amusement leave the Grand Master's expression. She glanced at Altair; he seemed to have been caught off guard. She twirled the knife and made sure the blade caught and reflected the sunlight. William stepped away from Robert, raising his sword, but the Grand Master seemed to have turned into a pillar. He seemed to have his eyes locked on the steward pinned under her foot, it gave Sandy satisfaction.

At that moment Altair seemed to come back to his senses and charged, Sandy smiled when she heard his hidden blade extend, never taking her eyes off the Grand Master. Letting him think that she would come through on her promise and run the woman through. Admittedly she probably couldn't, not from that position. Her knife would never penetrate both padded surcoat and chainmail that the steward wore. Sandy wasn't even sure that she wanted to harm the woman, it all seemed like sinking to Robert's level, and she was not willing to go that far. However she'd give him an Oscar-worthy performance and hope for the best.

William had not expected Altair's speed; she heard his exclamation and then the ringing of chainmail and metal grinding. The woman began to struggle in earnest; Sandy glanced down, noting that she had been watching the death of William behind her employer.

"Traitor," William gasped on his final breath.

Sandy glanced at the man whom she had kneed in the nuts. He was staring at the Grand Master like he had just seen the devil himself. She could practically see the disillusionment happening.

"We're done here," Altair stated.

"Good," Sandy let go of the steward's arm, letting it drop the ground, eliciting a painful gasp from the woman, no longer masking her voice. Her arm had probably fallen asleep during the whole time that Sandy had held it at such an unnatural angle. It would be a few minutes before she got the feeling back into it. It might stall the Templars so that a tactical retreat could be executed. She still kept the woman pinned as she hid her weapon and drew her cloak around herself, slipping her arms into its sleeves before raising the hood.

"Tell me, why would a woman like you help the assassin?" Robert asked.

Sandy smiled broadly, "Really now, Milord, I should think you of all people would know why a woman chooses to fight for a man, no?" She purposefully let her eyes trail down to the steward as she spoke.

"Let's go!" Altair commanded.

Sandy picked up the note of frustration in is voice and decided it was better that she didn't push her luck any more today. As suddenly as she could, she launched off, running past the Templar Grand Master and into the alley, followed by Altair. Somehow though, she thought that the enemy was unlikely to chase them after what happened. Robert really had no manpower to deal with them; one on one she was sure that Altair would best him. There would also be no point in another round; he had lost the day's battle.

They didn't make it back to the bureau; Altair stopped in another isolated side yard and turned to face her. One look into his eyes told Sandy all she needed to know about what was on his mind. It had been coming since she had interrupted his fight the first time.

"Why did you come?" he demanded harshly.

"You left before the last informant returned, he was at the fortress and he saw Robert there, I had to come and warn you."

He glared and Sandy froze under the force of it. "When you realized you were too late you should have gone back!" he argued.

"Robert brought along a crossbowman, Altair!" she argued back.

"And I will thank you for killing him, but you should have stayed in the alley!"

Sandy shrank back; it was the first time that she heard Altair outright raise his voice at her. He was obstinate and rude in his arguments, but he never shouted. She took a step back and he took a step foreword, before she could stop him she found herself pressed to the wall of a building, Altair towering over her, his hands caging her shoulders.

"I was worried for you," she argued, lowering her voice, hoping that the change would put a stop to the shouting match between them. It wasn't wise to be shouting in the middle of the city, especially in light of what pandemonium was about to break out the second the death of William was discovered. Ultimately she didn't like being shouted at and it was strange for Altair to be raising his voice altogether.

"What do you suppose I thought at the time?" Altair asked in a firm, though no longer shouting tone.

"I won't apologize, Altair, and you cannot make me. I know I risked my life, but it's my life to risk. Besides, I stopped Robert from scheming for a moment or two, didn't I? I gave you a clear shot at William."

"He _let_ you!" Altair protested. "He _could_ have attacked you, by all rights anyone else would have, but instead he chose to sacrifice William."

Sandy stopped cold; suddenly she knew that Altair had a point. He had just stuck her nose into a giant gaping flaw in her original logic. She had not even thought of the option of Robert attacking her, she had subconsciously been so sure of Altair being there to keep her safe. But in the precise moment of her taking the steward as a hostage she had been open, entirely at Robert's mercy. He had simply chosen not to act. Why? What stopped the haughty Templar from turning the tables? He chose to sacrifice William, why? He had called her the 'Fallen' when William had asked. The term had to mean something, and she latched on to it. That had to be at the root of the puzzle. Problem remained how she would go about discovering its meaning, she couldn't very well march up to them and ask, and something told her that pounding on the average grunt for that information would not work either. It presented a frustrating problem, her curiosity was piqued, and being unable to satisfy it frustrated her to hell and back.

"So you see," Altair spoke, his voice losing its harsh edge.

"Yes, well- a slight oversight on my part. Perhaps a little naïve, but it worked out, didn't it?" she replied.

"Don't ever do that again," he continued.

"I'll be more careful from now on." She would have expected him to move away then, but he remained there, hovering over her, as if unsure himself of what he should do. He glared, but Sandy thought the expression lacked a menacing edge to be a genuine glare. Then it vanished and he signed as if exasperated.

"Does the rafiq know?" he asked next.

"Um… no?" she replied sheepishly. "I was kind of eavesdropping on the reports. I knew he wouldn't allow me to go, so I didn't ask."

"He will have your head," Altair stated.

"Probably, but I choose that over you getting hurt any day," she patted his chest to illustrate the point. "By the way, I do plan to blame you for my corruption. I'm just an innocent girl." She smiled broadly. He tried to glare, but all the same she saw the corners of his lips twitch into an almost grin, he was trying to suppress the reaction, but it was there. Being as close as they were, there was no way to disguise it.

"I should punish you for that cheek," he stated.

Sandy knew she shouldn't be grinning about it, but somehow when he said it, it did not sound as menacing as it should. He probably knew that she was not taking the threat seriously. Her hands ghosted along the harness over his chest, her fingers tugged on it playfully. The she passed her thumb over the metal triangle that joined the straps. "If you so much as touch me, Altair. I will make sure you lose a few more fingers, you got that?"

He genuinely smiled. It was the absolute last response she would have expected from him given that she had threatened him pain. She didn't want to look like a push over, even if her threat was empty. Then he leaned foreword and suddenly she found herself forehead-to-forehead with him. Her breathing hitched at his proximity and then she felt his hands settle on her waist. Somehow this felt more intimate than the previous one, even if little had actually changed.

"Does this count?" he asked quietly, his breath fanning her cheeks.

"Now who is cheeky?" She meant to sound sarcastic, but the words came out breathless. His proximity made her stomach flutter, and though it wasn't uncomfortable in the full sense, it was still unusual. Some part of her liked this new intimacy, it was different, new, and it was exciting. She met his eyes and noticed that he was watching her. She passed her hands over his chest and watched as his smile transformed into a familiar grin.

She slipped her arms up, wrapping them around his neck, trapping him there, but before he could open his mouth to ask what she was doing she rose on her tip toes and sealed her lips to his. She wanted to kiss him, plain and simple. The contact caught him off guard, she felt one hand leave her waist and slap unto the wall near her shoulder, were it not for the wall he would have stumbled. His response was enthusiastic and passionate and she eagerly kissed him as passionately as she could. Kissing him felt good, it felt right. He kept a scant space between their bodies, but even with that she could feel the heat radiating off his body in waves, it made her shiver a little to realize that she had probably just fractured some sort of dam in him.

However, he was the first to pull away, as if sensing that she was running out of breath. It was then that it fully and finally sank in. He was safe and unhurt, he was there and the world around them did not matter. All that mattered was the certainty she suddenly felt. It was like a rock had finally lifted off her back, letting her breathe freely for the first time in what felt like eternity. She wasn't going to lie to herself and say that there was more than one reason for the deep worry and dread that had gripped her heart when she had been positive that he was in danger. When she felt his thumb ghosting her cheek she opened her eyes, not realizing she had closed them. "Why the tears?" he asked in a sultry tone.

Sandy raised her hands to her face and realized that she had been crying the whole time. "I-" she wiped at them furiously, commanding the rest to stop streaming. "I realized you were safe. I- I'm happy." She looked up and smiled. It wasn't the time to admit to him that she finally understood her feelings for him. With a surprising clarity and lucidity she was positive that she loved the assassin from the bottom of her heart. The tears had been happiness.

Altair opened his mouth to say something when suddenly she heard the rattling of rushing men in armor coming from the street over. The two of them sprang apart instinctively, but the rattling simply passed the alleyway leading to the yard and quieted down.

"I think they discovered William," Sandy stated. "We better get to the bureau before they raise the general alarm." She grabbed his hand without thinking, pulling him along to the street. Some part of her was glad that the soldiers gave her a way out of the situation for the time being. She was sure that had it not been for them, she would have been tempted to kiss Altair a few more times. It was neither the time nor place to get utterly enthralled by the assassin.

She didn't bother to let go of his hand as she pulled him along down the street, some people stopped to watch, and a few of the women smiled fondly. Sandy ignored them wholly and kept going. Altair only began to resist her pull when they drew close to the bureau and they had to get up to the roof to enter it via the yard entrance.

Sandy was beginning to think that they had actually managed to get away scot-free. The city's bells were not clamoring in alarm yet, that probably meant that the soldiers were headless, mindless, and there was no one to slap them back to reality. Had Robert covered up his presence? She idly wondered if he would have killed the man whose life she had spared, just to eliminate the witness. Certainly in this time there was no one who would investigate their deaths. No one would look at the bodies and notice that of all of them there were two with wounds made by two different weapons inconsistent with the rest. Robert could easily kill the witness and get away with it.

As she jumped down into the yard, she noticed that the rafiq was already there, and he looked less than amused.

"So your woman found you?" he demanded.

Altair straightened and made a show of tugging on the harness over his chest, straightening it out a little. "She delivered valuable updated information. This is more than could be said for your man from the fortress."

Sandy smiled blankly as a way of concealing her utter surprise. Altair had merely pointed out the obvious, but it really sounded like he was coming to her defense. The rafiq's whole expression darkened, it looked like he took it the same way.

"I should not have expected anything more from you, Altair. As you circumvent the rules, so does your woman. She is led by your bad example."

Sandy almost jumped to his defense but then decided that she did not need to; Altair could handle being chewed out, couldn't he? She also did not want to draw more attention to herself. Even if her feminist side was clamoring to say that she had a mind of her own and she was not learning anything from Altair. She was not a small child getting a bad example from her father. The only thing she had ever learned from Altair was a few more creative ways to shiv a mook in a pinch.

The rafiq spared her a cold glare and Sandy restrained herself with everything she had not to glare right back. She was pretty sure that if he saw her rendition of Altair's killing look, he would think that she learned even that from the assassin. It would be merely proving him right in some convoluted backward way.

"I suppose since you two have completed the mission, one cannot argue with the results," the rafiq ground out, though Sandy could tell that it was practically paining him to admit it. It was an uncharacteristic concession from the otherwise nearly inflexible scribe. Sandy held back from glancing at Altair to confirm if he was on the same brainwave as she was. It would have to wait. "Rest, recuperate…" the man turned around and breezed back into the bureau with a stiffened gait. Sandy wondered what his problem with her was really, it surely couldn't be just her being a woman and doing things unorthodoxly.

"You'd think he expects me to demand a promotion and increased pay," she murmured under her breath.

"Perhaps he does."

"Heh, like I actually stand a chance of getting it." She tried to laugh it off, but there were a handful of acidic words on the tip of her tongue. She chose not to utter them because it was technically speaking ill of a superior. She didn't want to risk being overhead. She glanced at him again and smiled. "Really, I only kill when I have absolutely no other choice. Some assassin I'd be," she snickered, turning away and practically diving into the sea of pillows in the shade.

* * *

The sun had set well into the waters of the sea when they had caught up with the army on the march. Maria was sore in more places than she wanted to count and that made her mood plummet precipitously. She could not even remember the last time she had been this tired. She wasn't even sure there had even been such a time before. She couldn't even afford thinking about rest yet; she still had more duties to attend to. At the very moment she had to press the laymen workers into erecting her lord's pavilion for the night. They had not bothered to do so because of the delayed arrival. The army camp around her was a nest of activity, but all of it was done with dimmed lights. This made the process take four times longer than it should.

The only candles and lamps that burned were in the various pavilions, the cooking fires were dimmed to burning embers. All was in the effort of disguising the size and layout of their camp from the sentries of Saladin. The brightest pavilion was right in the center of the camp, belonging to Richard himself. Robert had elected to have his pitched as far from Richard's as he could without rousing the suspicion that he was avoiding the king in any way. Richard was already annoyed that the Grand Master of the Knights Templar had not ridden at his right the whole way. Maria knew that the effort at distance was valiant by moot, if Richard decided to summon the Grand Master during the night; she'd still get a very rude awakening first.

With the final peg and guy-rope anchored the pavilion was finally complete. The laymen scurried about to carry in and set up the limited pavilion equipage. Blissfully the men knew the layout by heart, having assembled and disassembled it before, she only had to stand there and look menacing. Three laymen worked on reassembling the bed frame in the corner with one setting up the stands at its head. Two more were busy with the hanging and lighting of lanterns from hooks in the wooden frame of the pavilion. Another two were putting together the heavy desk opposite of the door, and the last two carried in the chairs followed by the heavy storage trunks. Maria directed them to set the trunks in the corner as she touched the pouch at her hip, checking for the keys of said trunks.

"The pavilion is complete," the foreman of the team announced.

"Good, you are dismissed." Maria replied coolly.

The man bowed to her but at that moment she heard the flap of the pavilion open. The bows instantly deepened even as the laymen hastened to duck out of the tent as if the devil himself was at their heels. As soon as they were gone Maria allowed herself to heave a sight and relax. She could feel the headache coming with the weak first thrumming in her right temple.

"What a day," she murmured, no longer deepening her voice.

"Go rest," Robert ordered.

She wanted to ask if she would be allowed to, but decided not to. Who really knew what sort of capricious mood Richard was in tonight? "Should I fetch a meal before that?" she asked.

Robert stopped in the center of the pavilion and appraised her for a long moment. "Something light," he stated.

Maria nodded her head and turned around.

"Leave the keys _here_." He ordered before she could exit the tent.

Maria shook her head, reaching for the pouch at her side. She jingled the ring and flicked it over her head for him to catch. For all of a moment she thought that she had succeeded at keeping him from damaging his sight on work tonight.

She was back at the pavilion in record time, carrying a tray with fresh bread, a bowl of soup made with actual meat and cooked vegetables, and a handful of fresh fruits. With no guards at the entryway to raise the tent's flap for her, she had to maneuver around the flap extra carefully as to not drop the food. She found Robert already buried in an overall surprisingly small stack of paperwork that had not been there when she left the tent. He had lit three candles and set them on the table. She drew closer and set down the tray on the edge of the table.

"Sit down," he ordered, waving his hand towards the chair at the side of the tent.

She reached up and pulled off her helmet, deeming it safe. No one would barge into the tent without a good reason, so she could ease her act a little. By that point she was quickly becoming dead on her feet, the exhaustion had sneaked up on her and she heaved a sigh, using her turned back to hide it from Robert. The last thing she needed was for him to see that she was close to passing out. She dragged the chair closer to his desk and sank down on it, realizing belatedly that he had not yet touched the food she had brought.

"Is something wrong with the food?" she asked.

"I am not hungry," he replied, never lifting his eyes from the correspondence in his hands.

Maria blinked in surprise, should she take it away? It seemed unlike him to order food and then just change his mind.

"Seems like a shame wasting good food."

She stared at him for a long moment as the realization dawned. They had missed supper with the rest of the troops, so she would not have gotten anything until tomorrow midmorning. But he had the power of rank to break that restriction. No one would tell him no, so she would have to. She wouldn't have him fasting over twelve hours on her account. "I can handle a lon-"

"Eat. Or I'll make it an order." He cut in, giving her cold look.

Maria would have flinched under that cool look if she wasn't so used to it. There was no point arguing with it, so she pulled the tray closer and pulled off her gloves before picking up the spoon. She took the first mouthful of soup hesitantly; it did not sit well with her to eat his food. But then as it was like some devil possessed her and she dug into the soup with gusto. She heard him set down the parchment in his hands on the table. The chair creaked under his weight as he leaned back.

"You are in a foul mood today," he stated

Maria looked up; the spoon hovered halfway between the bowl and her mouth. She set it down slowly and straightened in her seat.

"Should I answer truthfully?" she asked.

"I have never stopped you before."

Maria bit off a chunk of bread, chewing as she collected her thoughts. "I'm just angry. I do not like being made a fool," she announced after swallowing. "That woman knew exactly where to hit and what to pull- she made a patsy of me."

"Her skill is fairly surprising," Robert mused lightly.

She looked up from the soup again, trying to disguise her annoyance. At that moment she couldn't understand what was so amusing about her humiliation. Asking was pointless, so she decided to steer the topic in another direction. "Richard will not be pleased that William is dead." It was saying the least on the matter, the king would probably be furious once he found out.

"I was not there to stop it," Robert said calmly, returning to his paperwork.

"Of course not, you let it hap-" Maria clapped a hand over her mouth. She had not meant to say such a blatantly impetuous thing. It had to be the exhaustion talking. She looked up slowly, "I am sorry, that just slipped out."

"No, you are right. I let it happen," he smiled.

Maria was baffled by the sudden amusement in his tone. Did she want to ask why? Having been in his service for almost two years, she knew Robert de Sable well enough to recognize that he always had a reason for whatever he did. Even when the situation turned seemingly against him, he always had some sort of plan to turn it right around. The man was as cunning as he was charismatic. Unfortunately sometimes she did not agree with his reasoning, and that usually resulted in an argument she invariably lost. Right then she knew it was neither the time nor place to start one, the pavilion did not offer much in the way of privacy. She decided that she did not need to know why and returned to the soup which was quickly turning lukewarm.

"Don't you want to know why?" He asked, almost teasing.

"Will I want to argue with you about it?" she replied.

"Perhaps, but correct me if I'm wrong; you like a good argument."

Maria glared from under her eyelashes as she took another mouthful of soup. She certainly could not say she did not; she thrived on the intellectual stimulation of trying to argue her point. Certainly it was not something she had often, seeing as he was the only person with whom she could have a lengthy conversation without risking exposing herself. However to say that she outright enjoyed having arguments with him would be a stretch.

"William was a pawn."

"A _pawn_?" she repeated.

He raised his hand to silence her, "One does not sacrifice a queen to protect a pawn, Maria."

Maria turned and stared into the soup bowl in front of her. She had known that she would not approve of Robert's reasons for letting William die. However, this proved too much. What she should say that would not trigger a shouting match? Knowing that Robert had let someone like William of Montferrat die because of her was a bitter medicine to swallow. "I imagine that there are those who would disagree with your assessment," she murmured.

"Those who aren't familiar with chess, perhaps."

She eyed him. "Sir—"

"I want your opinion on the Fallen," he cut her off smoothly; indicating clearly that the subject was to be dropped. "You know her slightly better than I do."

"I don't know her at all." Maria turned back to the soup. "Who I met in that bathhouse and who I met today seem like two different people. There was nothing timid left in her. Such a change so quickly is unnatural."

"Then it was not a change. She merely bared her claws," Robert remarked.

Maria bit off another chunk of bread, chewing on it slowly as she thought about what he had said. Certainly the woman could have faked the innocence and coyness the first time. All women had it in them to act timid and submissive. Most did nothing but act in such a manner. It annoyed Maria that she had been fooled by such an act, that she had not seen the devil behind those eyes.

"Did she harm you?" he asked.

Maria was startled out of her brooding thoughts by the question and the warm manner in which he had asked it.

"No. I do not think she meant to cause me actual pain," she turned back to the soup. It bothered Maria that the fallen's manner of fighting did not inflict pain, but could still bring down her opponent. It was too strange a way of thinking, to bring someone down without causing them pain or wounds. Maria was used to fighting opponents that were much stronger than her, angry individuals who would like nothing better than to spill her blood. It had taken time, but she had learned to match and defeat them. Yet the Fallen had an almost gentle, but highly effective manner of fighting that looked easy to master. Maria was sure that she could mimic the particular series of strikes the fallen used on her.

Maria looked up from the soup when she heard the chair creak again. Robert put his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingers interwoven before him. His gaze was locked at some distant point past her shoulder, and he was grinning faintly. That vaguely amused yet predatory expression always made Maria nervous, it never boded well.

**

* * *

The Tidbits Corner:**

Robert's Chess Analogy – Chess has been around in Europe since the 1000s, I feel him making the allusion is not at all improper.

**Director's Notes:**

I wanted some stress to get me writing, I got just the opposite. Too much of it. The first half of this chapter (the action scene) wrote itself, because I had mostly story-boarded it at the time of the previous chapter's completion. Everything else of course ended up plaguing me with this and that. The final scene was a pure HELL writing. I really need to start making more thorough storyboards.

My university term this year is hell, I get A LOT of reading to be doing during the week, and that pretty much exhausts my brain to the point of being unable to stand looking at word, never mind typing something up. I know my delays are inexcusable, and I'm not happy about them.


End file.
